PERCEIVED ODOR, IRRITATION, AND HEALTH SYMPTOMS FOLLOWING SHORT-TERM EXPOSURE TO ACETONE

The subjectivity of irritancy judgments can bias attempts to establish exposure guidelines that protect individuals from the sensory irritat ion produced by volatile chemicals. At low to moderate chemical concen trations, naive and occupationally exposed individuals often show cons iderable variation in the reported levels of perceived irritation. Suc h variation could result from differences in exposure history, differe nces in the perceived odor of a chemical, or differences in generalize d response tendencies to report irritation, or response bias. Thus, ex perimental evaluation of sensory irritancy must dissociate sensory irr itation from response bias. To this end, judgments of perceived irrita tion from 800 ppm acetone were obtained from acetone-exposed workers a nd age- and gender-matched naive controls. To assess the role of respo nse bias during exposure to odorants, subjects were also exposed to ph enylethyl alcohol (PEA), an odorant that does not produce sensory in i rritation. Following exposure, subjects completed a subjective symptom survey that included symptoms that have been associated with long-ter m solvent exposures and symptoms that have not. Acetone-exposed worker s and naive controls reported large differences in the perceived inten sity of odor and irritation from acetone, yet no differences in the pe rception of PEA. However, for both groups, the most significant factor s mediating reported irritancy and health symptoms from acetone were t he perceived intensity of its odor and an individual's bins to report irritation from PEA. The perception of odor intensity and degree of re sponse bias will differ between and within groups of exposed and naive individuals, hence, an assessments of the influence of these factors in experimental and workplace studies of chemical irritancy, is warran ted. (C) 1997 Wiley-liss, Inc.