Editorial: The search for core symptoms - will this help clinical decision-making?

Diagnosis is an important component of our clinical roles, and should also lead to particular treatment pathways. The diagnostic process may be challenged by co-occurring deficits that are neither specific nor universal to the diagnosis under consideration and may well be evident across a range of other clinical conditions. How important is it to refine our instruments so that they measure unique symptoms? Will this alter or improve intervention choices? This Editorial focuses on the extent to which fine tuning diagnostic instruments improves our decisions about treatment, in the context of articles published in this issue of JCPP.