The consensus definition of remission in schizophrenia defines remission as:

The operationalisation of this definition consists of two elements: the absence or low intensity of eight core symptoms of schizophrenia (severity criterion) and the maintenance of this state for a minimum of 6 months (time criterion). The consensus definition is aimed at facilitating research on the course of illness, at improving the comparability of studies and at helping clinicians and patients focus on positively formulated treatment outcomes. The definition has been used in several studies of schizophrenia, exploring cognitive ability and antipsychotic medication, and is validated by several studies using functional outcome, symptom severity, need for care and/or quality of life as outcome measures. However, these outcome measures are mostly clinician-rated and standardised, whereas real-life validation using self-report measures of actual functioning (e.g. time spent with others and in goal-directed activities) and real-life experiences is lacking. We therefore aimed to validate the remission criterion using a momentary assessment strategy investigating symptom level and functioning in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. We investigated positive symptoms, negative symptoms and functional outcome in the flow of daily life in patients meeting the severity criterion of the symptomatic remission definition, patients not meeting that criterion and a healthy comparison group, the last allowing a comparison with a ‘normal’ level of functioning. Method