There are two aspects of self-reporting olfactory dysfunction that ensure the accuracy of the report. 
- sensitivity: correctly identifying olfactory dysfunction
- specificity: correctly recognizing the standard of what's "normal"

Patients are often specific, but not sensitive when self-reporting olfactory dysfunction. Additionally, sensitivity reporting can be improved through questionnaires. 

Ohio State University, Columbus

Prevalence of olfactory dysfunction is difficult to measure, because olfactory testing is not part of general health exams. Therefore, clinicians often rely on their patients to self-report olfactory dysfunction in order to better estimate prevalence. 

Prevalence of olfactory dysfunction

Boesveldt, S., Postma, E.M., Boak, D., Welge-Luessen, A., Schöpf, V., Mainland, J.D., Ngai, J., & Duffy, V.B. (2017). Anosmia - A Clinical Review. Chemical Senses, 42 (7), 513-523. http://doi.org/10.1093/chemse/bjx025

Anosmia - A Clinical Review

Self-reporting olfactory dysfunction

(Nationally representative sample of older US adults)
- Used a 5-point Likert scale
- 12.4% reported fair or poor sense of smell
- 22.0 % had objective olfactory dysfunction
- 74.2% of those who had measured olfactory dysfunction did not recognize that they had it 

Statistics of olfactory dysfunction

- Patient is given test strips with an appropriate amount of stimulus for the patient to identify an odor and name it correctly, establishing an odor-word relationship. 
- Odor threshold testing is used to identify changes in odor sensitivity but is a longer examination than the odor identification task. 
- When used together, these two tests provide a more accurate representation of the level of odor dysfunction in a particular patient.

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