Counting Symptoms Hides Severity

Clinical research that tallies the number of withdrawal symptoms (a symptom‑count metric like DESS) can understate how impairing those symptoms are because it treats all symptoms as equal and does not measure severity or functional impact. When high‑visibility meta‑analyses rely on such counts, they risk producing modest statistical effects that are misread as clinically trivial. — This matters because it affects prescribing guidance, patient consent, and whether the public or clinicians take antidepressant withdrawal seriously.