ABSTRACTSmell identification deficits are consistently found in schizophrenia (SZ), but little is known about the nature and characterization of this deficit or its relationship to the phenomenology of the illness. This study aims to further delineate smell identification errors in SZ by examining the relationship of patient demographic differences with smell-identification performance. Our results showed that a patient's gender and education were related to odor-identification scores, with better performance seen in female patients and in those with greater educational attainment. However, there was no effect related to age, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status on odor identification. A smell identification deficit was also unrelated to clinical characteristics of the patients, including age at first hospitalization, number of psychiatric hospitalizations, and duration of illness. Odor identification also did not differ by SZ subtype, nor between SZ and schizoaffective disorder patients. These findings emphasize that odor identification deficits in SZ are unrelated to clinical illness features, cannot be explained by other confounds related to olfaction in the general population, and may be core features related to the SZ disease process.
摘要精神分裂症(SZ)患者一直存在嗅觉识别缺陷,但人们对这种缺陷的性质和特征及其与疾病现象学的关系知之甚少。本研究旨在通过研究患者的人口统计学差异与气味识别能力之间的关系,进一步界定精神分裂症患者的气味识别错误。我们的研究结果表明,患者的性别和教育程度与气味识别得分有关,女性患者和教育程度较高的患者的气味识别得分更高。然而,年龄、种族或社会经济地位对气味识别没有影响。气味识别缺陷也与患者的临床特征无关,包括首次住院的年龄、精神病住院次数和病程。气味识别能力也不因精神分裂症亚型而异,也不因精神分裂症患者和精神分裂情感障碍患者而异。这些研究结果强调,SZ患者的气味识别障碍与临床疾病特征无关,不能用普通人群中与嗅觉有关的其他混杂因素来解释,而且可能是与SZ疾病过程有关的核心特征。