Prevalence of Anosmia and Ageusia in Patients with COVID-19 at a Primary Health Center, Doha, Qatar

Abstract

Background: Loss of smell and taste are common complaints in patients with the COVID-19 disease. These symptoms may present alone or with other symptoms. It is of utmost importance to know their rates of occurrence for better controlling of the infection. Objectives: To detect the prevalence of anosmia and ageusia in individuals with COVID-19 in Al-Wajbah Primary Health Center, Doha, Qatar.Materials and methods: This retrospective study was conducted at Al-Wajbah Primary Health Center, Doha, Qatar. The study covered the two-month period -May and June 2020. The proven cases of COVID-19 by real-time PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) were enrolled in the study. Data regarding the age, gender, symptomatology including anosmia and ageusia, history of recent travel, smoking, past history of nasal and paranasal diseases (NPND), and severity of the disease were taken from the patients’ records. IBM- SPSS version 22 statistical software was used for the analysis of the data.Results: Out of 141, 35 (24.82%) subject presented with anosmia, ageusia or both. Most of the patients were from age group >30 year (n=104, 73.76%) with nearly equal gender. The majority of the individuals were without history of recent travel (92.2%) and smoking (80.14%). Three-quarters of the patients were asymptomatic, and 51.06% with a past history of NPND. The male sex, history of recent travel, smoking, and severe course of the disease were positive, highly significant association with anosmia or ageusia. All patients returned to their normal smell and taste sensations within a mean duration of 6.89 days.Conclusion: Loss of taste and smell were common symptomatology of COVID-19 disease. The males, recent travel, smoking, and severe course of the disease were risk factors of the anosmia and ageusia in COVID-19 cases.

Olfactory and Gustatory Dysfunction in COVID-19 Patients from Northern India: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study

“…As per Lechien et al, they reported up to 85.6% COVID-19 patients with olfactory dysfunction and 88% patients had gustatory dysfunctions [ 6 ]. Similar results of 68% and 71% regarding prevalence of smell and taste disorder has been found in COVID-19 patients in a study from USA, [ 36 ] whereas, low prevalence rates (5.1 to 24.8% for OD; 5.6 to 20.6% for GD) are mentioned in studies from Asian region [ 5 , 31 , 32 , 37 ].…”

“…In our study, to accrue the data we relied on a questionnaire which was filled by the patient online or by telephonic interview from proven COVID-19 patients. Various other studies have also relied on such methodology [6,[30][31][32]. While others have relied on objective testing, performed by the health worker or self-administered after explaining the procedure [9,[33][34][35].…”

Psychophysical Evaluation of the Olfactory Function: European Multicenter Study on 774 COVID-19 Patients

“…Some authors found significant associations between self-reported olfactory disorders and female gender [ 2 , 7 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ], younger age [ 32 , 33 , 36 , 37 , 38 ], smoker [ 39 ] or no-smoker [ 33 ] habit, hypertension [ 15 ], diabetes [ 18 ], depression [ 40 ], or symptoms such as fever [ 2 ] and nasal obstruction [ 41 ].…”

Saliva, a relevant alternative sample for SARS-CoV2 detection

“…Concerning the symptoms, although the median onset (IQR) was 0 day (0-2.5), more than one third of the participants (n=104, 34.3%) presented symptoms at the enrolment day. The more common symptoms at presentation were fever (n=39, 12.9%), myalgia (n=31, 10.3%) and headache (n=24, 7.9%), corresponding to flu symptoms, followed by cough (n=21, 6.9%) and anosmia/ageusia (n=20, 6.6%) which were frequently reported in Covid-19 clinical diagnosis criteria [28,29].…”