Establishment and Evaluation of Light Intervention Model for Patients with Schizophrenia

Light therapy is using different types, intensities, and frequencies of light to improve the circadian rhythm of patients; it is an intervention that can improve the negative symptoms, depression, and sleep disorders. Because the problems of negative symptoms, depression, and sleep disorders in the patients with schizophrenics are very common, it is currently an important research topic. However, there were limited related studies about light therapy on the patients with schizophrenia, and were pilot studies years ago. Thus, current research will establish light intervention model, and evaluate the effectiveness of light therapy on the negative symptoms, depression, and sleep disorders of patients with schizophrenia. In the first year, as there were few studies of light therapy in patients with schizophrenia, current research will integrate the studies of light intervention on depression in the past decade, and systematically analyzes the depressive symptoms and sleep effectiveness; as a result, establishes a reference for the light intervention model in patients with schizophrenics. In the second year, patients with schizophrenia are the main subjects. Besides of the subjective Schizophrenia depression scale and negative symptoms scale, current study will use actigraphy to record the sleep cycle of the patients, and the patients will fill in the sleep diary. These records will help to understand the relationship among negative symptoms, depression, and sleep quality of the patients with schizophrenia in details. In the third year, we will investigate the effectiveness of light intervention model on negative symptoms, depression, and sleep quality of the patients with schizophrenia. There will be follow-up effectiveness tracking for the patients in 2 weeks and 1 month after finishing the light therapy. All data will be analyzed using SPSS 20.0 for the effectiveness of light intervention model and the impact of time. Current study expects to provide the empirical results for the detail understanding of the relationship among negative symptoms, depression, and sleep in patients with schizophrenia.