Application of Inorganic Polymer Composite Sensors in Emotion Recognition and Symptom Monitoring of Schizophrenia Patients

Abstract Objective Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness marked by emotional dysfunction and fluctuating mental health, lacking objective wearable tools to track psychiatric symptoms in real time. This study develops a stretchable multi-modal inorganic polymer composite sensor for mental health management, which synchronously collects skin conductance and micro-expression signals. It targets accurate emotion identification of schizophrenia patients, fills the gap in objective monitoring of psychiatric conditions, and provides quantitative technical support for early mental health risk screening of psychotic disorders. Subjects and Methods Zinc oxide nanorod composite sensing films were fabricated and tested for electromechanical performance. Thirty-five subjects including schizophrenia patients participated in emotion induction experiments covering neutral, anxious and joyful states. Sensors attached to forehead and fingers captured facial EMG and skin electrical activity reflecting psychiatric emotional fluctuations, with data matched to PANAS psychological scales to quantify patients’ mental health and abnormal emotional symptoms of mental illness. Results The sensor achieves stretchability over 40% and stable long-cycle detection, capturing subtle stress micro-expressions invisible to clinical observation. The combined physiological index reaches 89% emotion classification accuracy, far exceeding single-mode detection. Clear signal differences distinguish abnormal emotional arousal unique to schizophrenia, enabling continuous quantification of psychiatric emotional deviation and dynamic tracking of patients’ changing mental health status. Conclusions This multi-modal composite sensor serves as a non-invasive objective detection tool for mental illness intervention. It precisely identifies emotional deficits and real-time psychiatric symptom changes in schizophrenia patients, standardizing quantitative evaluation of clinical mental health. The wearable sensing system offers reliable digital monitoring means for psychiatric diagnosis, long-term mental health follow-up and personalized psychological intervention for psychotic disorder populations. Corresponding Author Lili Xue, Center for Biomedical Materials and Engineering, International Joint Laboratory of Advanced Nanomaterials of Heilongjiang Province, College of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang, China.