THE SCANDINAVIAN ODOR-IDENTIFICATION TEST - DEVELOPMENT, RELIABILITY,VALIDITY AND NORMATIVE DATA

The Scandinavian Odor-Identification Test (SOIT) was developed to addr ess the need fur a culturally valid odor-identification test for clini cal use on the Scandinavian population that (i) has good ability to ge neralize performance io olfactory status, (iii assesses olfactory and trigeminal function separately, (iii) requires only limited cognitive demands, (iv) i?as normative data and good sensitivity and specificity , and iri is fast, easy ti, administer and inexpensive. Sixteen odorou s test stimuli were selected that were relatively identifiable, famili ar, strong ill intensity and pleasant according to healthy participant s. Four response alternatives were then selected for each test stimulu s based on a confusion matrix of identification rates obtained from he althy participants, in a manner that controlled for task difficulty. R esults on the SOIT from healthy persons and hyposmic patients showed s atisfactory test-retest reliability, split-half reliability and validi ty. Cut-off scores for olfactory diagnosis (normosmia, hyposmia, anosm ia) based on normative data obtained from 171 healthy persons should a satisfactory sensitivity and specificity of the SOIT. Assessment of 2 2 anosmic patients with the SOIT revealed that three of the test stimu li were significant trigeminal stimulants.