Some patients with acute phase schizophrenia are too agitated to receive treatment in a normal hospital room. They must be isolated for the treatment. Although the stay in an isolation room seems harmful to patients, no study detailing the stress response to isolation with objective measures has been conducted.

Nine patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were recruited (mean age = 52 years, male = 3, schizophrenic = 7). At the time of evaluation, they were staying in an isolation room. To evaluate stress response to the environment, the level of salivary amylase was tested when the patients were either in the isolation room (T1) or out of the isolation room (T2). T2 was defined as one hour after the room's door was opened. The data were analyzed by the Wilcoxon rank-sum test.

There is a significant difference between the median (range) levels of salivary amylase at T1 and T2 (19 [2–146] vs 44 [9–178], respectively, P = 0.021).

The data demonstrate that the stress response at T2 was stronger than that at T1, which suggests that the isolation room environment is less stressful to the patient compared to being outside the room. An environment that has many potential stimuli, such as the presence of other patients and a television in the lobby, may be harmful to patients with acute phase schizophrenia. Therefore, although the isolation room is apparently harmful, it could, in fact, have a positive effect on patients.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.