Prevalence and Correlates of Parosmia and Phantosmia among Smell Disorders

Abstract Among those many individuals who suffer from a reduced odor sensitivity (hyposmia/anosmia) some individuals also experience disorders that lead to odor distortion, such as parosmia (i.e., distorted odor with a known source), or odor phantoms (i.e., odor sensation without an odor source). We surveyed a large population with at least one olfactory disorder (N = 2031) and found that odor distortions were common (46%), with respondents reporting either parosmia (19%), phantosmia (11%), or both (16%). In comparison to respondents with hyposmia or anosmia, respondents with parosmia were more likely to be female, young, and suffered from post-viral olfactory loss (p < 0.001), while phantosmia occurred most frequently in middle-aged respondents (p < 0.01) and was more likely to be caused by head trauma than parosmia (p < 0.01). A higher prevalence of odor distortion was observed 3 months to a year after their olfactory symptom onset (p < 0.001), which coincides with the timeline of physiological recovery. Additionally, we observed that the frequency and duration of distortions negatively affects quality of life, with parosmia showing a higher range of severity than phantosmia (p < 0.001). Previous research often grouped these distortions together, but our results show that they have distinct patterns of demographics, medical history, and loss in quality of life.