Olfactory Tests
Q-SIT was used to screen all included patients regardless of the presence or absence of OD. Table 1 shows the Q-SIT scores of all participants. The prevalence of OD using Q-SIT was 16.3% (44 participants). Female were having higher prevalence in comparison to males (30.5% and 11.1%) respectively; which was statistically significant (P <0.001). On the other hand, our results showed no significant association between age, nationality, or comorbid illness including chronic rhinosinusitis with self-reported anosmia or abnormal Q-SIT (Table 1). Furthermore, no significant association was found between anosmia and nasal blockage, postnasal drip, and rhinorrhea with olfactory dysfunction.
Among patients with abnormal Q-SIT, 37 patients (84%) subjectively reported OD at the time of the test. The recognition rate to question 1 (chocolate odor) was better than other two odors for patients with OD (Fig 2). Both ageusia and abnormal Q-SIT were present in 38.4% of patients with statistical significance (P <0.001; Table 3).
In patients with anosmia at the time of Q-SIT administration, 75.5 % of the participants had abnormal Q-SIT when cutoff score ≤ 2 was used; whereas 69.8% of the participants had abnormal Q-SIT when cutoff score ≤ 1 was used (table 5b,5a). On the other hand, in patients without anosmia at the time of Q-SIT administration, 30.4 % of the participants had abnormal Q-SIT when cutoff score ≤ 2 was used; whereas only 3.2% of the participants had abnormal Q-SIT when cutoff score ≤ 1 was used. (Table 4).