Objectives To undertake a systematic review to evaluate the efficacy of intravenous sodium nitroprusside (SNP) in the treatment of schizophrenia (SZ).Methods PubMed, Web of Science, EMbase, Cochrane Library, WanFang Data, CBM, and CNKI databases were searched up to October 2, 2019 to identify randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of intravenous SNP treatment for SZ. After literature screening and data extraction, we used Review Manager 5.3 to perform the meta-analysis.Results A total of 4 trails with 134 patients were included. The meta-analysis showed that there was no significant difference in the scores of general psychopathology [MD = 0.05 (95% CI: -2.63, 2.73)], positive psychopathology [MD = -0.76 (95% CI: -1.74, 0.23)] and negative psychopathology [MD = -1.77 (95% CI: -5.28, 1.74)] as assessed via Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) between the SNP group and the control group (P > 0.05). Following the sensitivity analysis, there was also no significant difference in the PANSS negative symptom scores [MD = -0.19 (95% CI: -1.62, 1.25)]. The score of Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) was different between the SNP group and the control group [MD = -5.91 (95% CI: -11.42, -0.41)], yet with considerable heterogeneity (I² = 54%).Conclusions SNP is relatively well tolerated for the treatment of SZ. However, it is inconclusive whether SNP could improve the mental symptoms associated with SZ.