Self-Administered Testing of Odor Threshold and Discrimination Using Sniffin’ Sticks—Reviving the “Odor-Curves-On-Paper” Method

• Published in: Chemosensory perception 2020-04, Vol.13 (1), p.71-77
• Main Authors: Besser, Gerold, Liu, David Tianxiang, Renner, Bertold, Mueller, Christian A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Clinical Nutrition; Food Science; Neurosciences; Odor thresholds; Odors; Olfaction; Olfactory discrimination; Olfactory discrimination learning; Olfactory thresholds; Self-administration
• ISSN: 1936-5802; 1936-5810
• DOI: 10.1007/s12078-019-09263-x

Introduction Olfactory testing helps in diagnosing olfactory dysfunction (OD). The Sniffin’ Sticks odor test kit is widely used for research and can be reused and summed scores of threshold (T), discrimination (D), and identification (I) allow comparison to normative data. Testing can be time consuming and odor pens have to be presented by an examiner. The aim of this study was to investigate for a self-administration strategy for testing T and D. Methods Fifty healthy subjects (30 female, 20 male, mean age 27.3 years ± 8.1, range 18–58) were included. T was tested by an examiner (T-as) in a reversed staircase manner and self-tested with randomly presented concentrations (T-rand) and ascending methods of limits (T-aml). D testing was performed with assistance (D-as) and self-administered (D-s). For self-testing, examinees were instructed to perform the “odor-curves-on-paper” method. Results Mean TDI was 35.9 ± 3.0, range 26.5–42.8. T-as scores were significantly lower than T-aml ( p