Clinical Significance

Clinical significance refers to how effective a particular psychological or healthcare treatment is and if there is a noticeable effect in the patient due to the treatment. A treatment can be said to have clinical significance if it helps the patient and has changed the original diagnosis of the patient. An example would be a patient with an anxiety disorder receiving a combination of therapy and medication for their disorder. The treatment would be considered clinically significant if the patient felt better, had symptoms that had lessened in severity and/or disappeared, and no longer received a diagnosis of the anxiety disorder after treatment.