High prevalence of long-term olfactory disorders in healthcare workers after COVID-19: A case-control study
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Abstract
More than a year after recovering from COVID-19, a large proportion of individuals, many of whom work in the healthcare sector, still report olfactory dysfunctions. However, olfactory dysfunction was common already before the COVID-19 pandemic, making it necessary to also consider the existing baseline prevalence of olfactory dysfunction. To establish the adjusted prevalence of COVID-19 related olfactory dysfunction, we assessed smell function in healthcare workers who had contracted COVID‐19 during the first wave of the pandemic using psychophysical testing.
Methods
Participants were continuously tested for SARS‐CoV‐2 IgG antibodies since the beginning of the pandemic. To assess the baseline rate of olfactory dysfunction in the population and to control for the possibility of skewed recruitment of individuals with prior olfactory dysfunction, consistent SARS-CoV‐2 IgG naïve individuals were tested as a control group.
Results
Fifteen months after contracting COVID‐19, 37% of healthcare workers demonstrated a quantitative reduction in their sense of smell, compared to only 20% of the individuals in the control group. Fifty-one percent of COVID‐19‐recovered individuals reported qualitative symptoms, compared to only 5% in the control group. In a follow-up study 2.6 years after COVID-19 diagnosis, 24% of all tested recovered individuals still experienced parosmia.
Conclusions
In summary, 65% of healthcare workers experienced parosmia/hyposmia 15 months after contracting COVID-19. When compared to a control group, the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction in the population increased by 41 percentage points. Parosmia symptoms were still lingering two-and-a half years later in 24% of SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals. Given the amount of time between infection and testing, it is possible that the olfactory problems may not be fully reversible in a plurality of individuals.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.20.22269490: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: Informed consent was obtained, and all aspects approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding Participants were blindfolded during the threshold and discrimination tests. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources All participants are tested for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies every four months since the start of the pandemic in Sweden3. SARS-CoV-2 IgGsuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section …SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.20.22269490: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: Informed consent was obtained, and all aspects approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding Participants were blindfolded during the threshold and discrimination tests. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Antibodies Sentences Resources All participants are tested for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies every four months since the start of the pandemic in Sweden3. SARS-CoV-2 IgGsuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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