Background: Post-COVID-19 Olfactory impairment has a negative impact on quality of life. The Sniffin Sticks test 12 items (SST-12) can be used in quick olfactory disorders screening. Its evaluation in a post-covid-19 situation was the main objective of this work.
Methods: All patient impaired with a post-COVID olfactory loss were included while consulting to the ENT department. The clinical examination included an olfaction recovery self-assessment (VAS), a nasofibroscopy, a quality of life (QoL) assessment, the complete Sniffin' Sticks Test (SST), and the SST-12.
Results: Among the 54 patients included, 92% (n = 50) were correctly screened as olfactory impaired by SST-12. We report excellent correlations between SST-12 and SST (rho (52) = 0.98, p < 0.001), QoL(rho(52) = 0.33 p = 0.016), or VAS (rho(52) = 0.49, p < 0.001) assessments.
Conclusions: SST-12 is a quick and reliable tool to screen large-scale population of post-COVID-19 olfactory impaired patients and could be used in a general daily clinical practice.
Keywords: Covid-19; Olfaction; Olfactory dysfunction; Screening; Sniffin sticks test 12 items.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.