3.1 Patient-reported outcomes
The patients have been asked to report on their subjective smell-related complaints or experiences prior to the Sniffin’ Sticks-test. On the first examination, on the day of hospital discharge, 30 patients reported anosmia and 23 hyposmia (without being able to specify any specific odorant at all). Regarding patient-reported gustatory outcomes, 18 patients reported ageusia, 22 hypogeusia and 3 of them phantogeusia (an often metallic or salty taste in the mouth for which no external stimulus can be found), the rest 10 reported a normogeusia. On the second examination, 4-6 weeks later, fourteen participants reported normosmia, seven reported anosmia, and 32 hyposmia. Additionally, 22 of them reported hypogeusia, 4 patients reported dysgeusia and 8 ageusia. Interestingly 6 of them reported allogeusia. The rest 13 reported no taste alterations. The results are depicted in Table 1.