Table 1.

Olfactory Psychophysical Clinic-Based Assessments

Instrument	Function assessed	Substances used	Protocol	Advantages	Disadvantages
Brief or Cross-Cultural Smell Identification Test⁸³	Identification	Banana, chocolate, cinnamon^*, gasoline, lemon, onion, paint thinner, pineapple, rose, soap, smoke, turpentine	Derived from the UPSIT. Using microencapsulated odorants, subjects progress through 12-item multiple-choice test for 12 odors	Requires less time, cost efficient Can be self-administered	Less thorough evaluation
Pocket Smell Test⁶⁹	Identification	Lemon, lilac, smoke	Derived from the UPSIT. Using microencapsulated strips, subjects progress through 3-item multiple-choice test for 3 odors.	Requires less time, cost efficient Can be self-administered	Less thorough evaluation
Q-Sticks⁸⁴	Identification	Cloves^*, coffee, rose	Using felt-tip pens with odorants, subjects progress through 3-item multiple-choice test for 3 odors.	Can be self-administered	Less thorough evaluation
Quick Smell Identification Test⁸⁵	Identification	Chocolate, banana, smoke	Using microencapsulated odorant strips, subjects progress through 3-item multiple-choice test for 3 odors.	Can be self-administered	Less thorough evaluation
University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test⁸⁶	Identification	Banana, bubble gum, cedar, cheddar cheese, cherry, chocolate, cinnamon^, cloves^, coconut, dill pickle, fruit punch, gasoline, gingerbread, grape, grass, leather, lemon, lilac, lime, licorice, menthol^, mint, motor oil, natural gas, onion, orange, peach, peanut, pine, pineapple, pizza, root bear, rose, smoke, soap, strawberry, thinner, turpentine, watermelon, wintergreen^	Using scratch and sniff scented strips, subjects progress through 40-item multiple-choice test for 40 odors.	High sensitivity and reliability; extensive normative data Can be self-administered	More time intensive
Snap & Sniff Threshold Test⁸⁷	Threshold	PEA, dilutions ranging from 10⁻² (strongest) to 10⁻⁹ (weakest) volume/volume concentrations	The kit contains 20 smell “wands.” Five contain no smell, while the other 15 contain PEA dilutions. Examiners plan the wand under subjects' noses and briefly present the dilution scent. A single staircase forced-choice paradigm is recommended.	Time efficient, rapid assessment of general olfactory function Newer test but recently validated	Less thorough evaluation – only evaluates detection threshold
Alcohol Threshold Test⁸⁸	Threshold	Ethyl alcohol (10%, 25%, 50%, 70%, 96%)	Examiners place 100 mL bottles with saline and with varying concentrations of ethyl alcohol under subjects' noses. The threshold scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 correspond to the weakest detectable alcohol concentrations of 10%, 25%, 50%, 70%, and 96%, respectively. The threshold score of 6 corresponds to participants not detecting 96% alcohol.	Time efficient, rapid assessment of general olfactory function	Less thorough evaluation Requires clinician administration
Smell Threshold Test⁸⁹	Threshold	Polypropylene, PEA	Examiners place 120 mL polypropylene squeeze bottles with mineral oil and varying concentrations of PEA in mineral oil under subjects' noses. The threshold is the mean of the last 4 of 7 staircase reversals.		Less thorough evaluation Requires clinician administration
“Sniffin' Sticks”⁹⁰	Identification, discrimination, threshold	Apple, anise seed, banana, cinnamon^cloves^, coffee, fish, garlic^, lemon, licorice, orange, peppermint^, pineapple, rose, shoe leather, turpentine, n-butanol	Using felt-tip pens with odorants, subjects progress through 16-item multiple-choice test of 16 odors for identification, triple forced choice for 16 pairs of odorants for discrimination, and the presentation of n-butanol in varying concentrations for threshold. Threshold was calculated as the mean of the last 4 of 7 staircase reversals.	Enables testing of three smell domainsCan be self- or clinician-administered	More time intensive

Abbreviations: PEA, phenyl ethyl alcohol; UPSIT, University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test.
↵* Indicates potential olfaction and chemesthesis overlap.