Abstract
Aim: To determine the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction (OD) and gustatory dysfunction (GD) among patients with SARS-CoV2 infection, and to identify their predictive factors that may be associated with these conditions.
Methods: This was an analytical cross-sectional study. All Tunisian adult patients (aged 18 years and above) who tested positive for SARS-CoV2 between March 2020 and February 2022 were included. The Data were collected over the course of was one month (February 2022). Patients completed an online questionnaire created using Google Forms, which requested information on age, sex, the onset and duration of OD and GD, comorbidities, otorhinolaryngological and general symptoms,
Results: Our study involved a total of 1911 participants with OD and GD being present in 55.1% and 50.0% of cases respectively. The mean age of patients was 37.25 ±9.18 years. The major part of patients were female (n=1510; 80% vs n=377; 20%) with a sex ratio of 0.25. Other associated symptoms that were commonly reported included headache (71.6%), body aches (62.7%), arthralgia (58.2%), fever (51.7%), sore throat (49.4%) and myalgia (41.8%). The results of the multivariate analysis indicated that not having received the vaccination prior to infection and having GD were the predictive factors associated with OD. The multivariate study demonstrated that predictive factors of GD were dysthyroidism, lack of vaccination prior to infection, nausea and arthralgia.
Conclusion: The most common clinical signs were OD and OG, which were among frequently accompanied by headache and body aches. Individuals of female gender and those under 35 years of age were observed to be at a higher risk of developing OD and OG. Furthermore, a notable correlation between the two conditions and those who had not received the vaccination.
Keywords: Olfaction, Smell, taste, Risk factors, COVID-19
