The 8-item NHANES pocket smell test®: Normative data.

Abstract

This study provides normative data useful for interpreting scores from the Pocket Smell Test^® (PST^®), a brief "scratch & sniff" neuropsychological olfactory screening test comprised of 8 items from the 40-item University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT^®). We combined 3,485 PST^® scores from the 2013 to 2014 National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES) of persons 40 years of age and older with equivalent PST^® items extracted from an UPSIT^® database of 3,900 persons ranging in age from 5 to 99 years. Decade-related age- and gender-adjusted percentile normative data were established across the entire age spectrum. Cut-points for defining clinically useful categories of anosmia, probable microsmia, and normosmia were determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses. An age-related decline in test scores was evident for both sexes after the age of 40 years, with women outperforming men. Based on the ROC analyses, subjects scoring 3 or less (AUC = 0.81) defines anosmia. Regardless of sex, a score of 7 or 8 on the N-PST^® signifies normal function (AUC of 0.71). Probable microsmia is classified as scores extending from 3 to 6. These data provide an accurate means for interpreting PST^® scores within a number of clinical and applied settings.