Open AccessPrevalence of olfactory dysfunction in COVID-19 patients
Author(s) -
Mohammad Bayat,
Amir Arabi,
Amir Assadi,
Saiezami Nia,
Masoud Mortezazadeh,
Abdolreza Mohamadnia,
Naghmeh Bahrami
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of craniomaxillofacial research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2345-6213
pISSN - 2345-5489
DOI - 10.18502/jcr.v8i1.7152
Subject(s) - olfaction , olfactory system , covid-19 , anosmia , population , medicine , audiology , disease , hyposmia , test (biology) , clinical psychology , psychology , psychiatry , infectious disease (medical specialty) , environmental health , biology , neuroscience , paleontology
Back ground: Nowadays COVID-19 has become a pandemic in which global society experience multiple difficulties in management. It seems that olfactory dysfunction is one of the early occurring symptoms of this viral infection and many patients just show this symptom after they got infected. Considering so, olfactory dysfunction especially a decline in olfaction could potentially be used for screening purposes and preventing the disease to spread.
Methods: 50 PCR-verified SARS-CoV-2 infected participants were assessed about their olfactory function adequacy using a Modified Version of the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) for the Iranian population called Iran Smell Identification Test (Iran-SIT). Participants scores were compared against normal population scores in this test and possible correlations of age and scores were explored as well
Results: Participants with SARS-CoV-2 infection generally obtained lesser scores in the mentioned test which means they experience a decline in olfactory function more, significantly. Aging also has a negative correlation with olfaction adequacy.
Conclusion: Based on this article’s finding, olfactory function decrease is more frequent among SARS-CoV-2 infected people and potentially could be a suggestive indicator for screening programs. This indicator should be interpreted concerning patients’ age.