Patient Reported Outcome Questionnaire of Olfactory & Gustatory Function
According to the NHNES questions, 61.4% of patients described their olfactory disorder as total loss of smell at the onset of the disease, while the remainder reported partial loss. Cacosmia and phantosmia occurred in 34% and 20% patients, respectively. The mean scores of SNOT-22 and sQOD-NS are reported in Table 4.
Regarding gustatory dysfunction, 51% of patients reported taste disorders with abnormal sensations of salty, sweet, bitter and sour. The aroma perception was completely or partly lost in 42% and 32%, respectively, while 12% reported distortion of aroma.
Psychophysical Olfactory Evaluations
The mean score of Sniffin’ Stick testing was 9 ± 4. Among the 86 patients, 41 (48%) and 12 (14%) patients were anosmic and hyposmic, respectively. A total of 33 (38%) patients who reported loss of smell were objectively normosmic. In the anosmic group, 26 (78.8%) patients reported total loss of smell. In the second group, 8 hyposmic individuals (88.9%) reported total loss of smell (Table 5).
The mean durations of olfactory dysfunction at the time of the evaluations were 17 ± 11 days and 18 ± 11 days for anosmic and hyposmic patients, respectively. The mean duration of olfactory dysfunction of normosmic patients was 17 ± 11 days (Table 5).
Eleven patients realized sniffin’stick test twice (one week apart). Among these 11 patients, 9 were anosmic, 1 hyposmic and 1 normosmic at the first evaluation. From the first to the second visit (1 week later), the sniffin’stick test values improved in 5 patients (1 became hyposmic and 4 normosmic individuals) of the 9 anosmic patients of the first visit.