Development and validation of the Vietnamese smell identification test

Area of Science:

• Otolaryngology
• Neuroscience
• Psychophysics

Background:

• Olfactory identification is culturally dependent, necessitating culturally specific tests.
• Existing smell identification tests (SIT) lack cultural specificity, potentially impacting hyposmia detection accuracy.
• This study focused on developing a culturally relevant smell identification test for Vietnamese individuals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a smell identification test tailored for Vietnamese patients (VSIT).
• To ensure the test accurately assesses olfactory function in the Vietnamese population.
• To establish the reliability and validity of the VSIT for clinical use.

Main Methods:

• A multi-phase approach involving odor familiarity surveys, test development with healthy and hyposmic participants, and retesting for reliability.
• Initial phase: 1050 participants evaluated odor familiarity to select 18 stimuli.
• Subsequent phases: 18 odors were narrowed to 12 for the VSIT, followed by validation against the Brief Smell Identification Test (BSIT) and retest reliability assessment.

Main Results:

• The VSIT demonstrated significantly higher scores in healthy participants compared to those with hyposmia (10.28 vs 4.57).
• The test achieved high sensitivity (93.3%) and specificity (97.5%) in detecting hyposmia using a cut-off score of 8.
• Intra-class correlation coefficient indicated good test-retest reliability (0.72).

Conclusions:

• The Vietnamese Smell Identification Test (VSIT) is a valid and reliable tool for assessing olfactory function.
• The VSIT enables accurate diagnosis of olfactory dysfunction in Vietnamese patients.
• This culturally adapted test improves the assessment of hyposmia within the Vietnamese population.