Olfactory identification ability among schizophrenia patients, their first-degree relatives and healthy subjects

Abstract

Objective:

Olfactory impairments, including identification, have been reported in patients with schizophrenia, while few studies have examined the olfactory function of unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, and the sample sizes of first-degree relatives were relatively small. Here, we investigated olfactory identification ability among patients with schizophrenia, first-degree relatives and healthy controls (HCs) using relatively large sample sizes at a single institute.

Methods:

To assess olfactory identification ability, the open essence odorant identification test was administered to 172 schizophrenia patients, 75 first-degree relatives and 158 healthy controls. Differences in olfactory identification and correlations between olfactory ability and clinical variables were examined among these participants.

Results:

We found a significant difference in olfactory identification ability among the diagnostic groups ( p = 7.65 × 10 ⁻¹⁶). Schizophrenia patients displayed lower olfactory identification ability than first-degree relatives (Cohen’s d = −0.57, p = 3.13 × 10 ⁻⁶) and healthy controls ( d = −1.00, p = 2.19 × 10 ⁻¹⁶). Furthermore, first-degree relatives had lower olfactory identification ability than healthy controls ( d = −0.29, p = 0.039). Olfactory identification ability moderately and negatively correlated with the duration of illness ( r = −0.41, p = 1.88 × 10 ⁻⁸) and negative symptoms ( r = −0.28, p = 1.99 × 10 ⁻⁴) in schizophrenia patients, although the correlation with the duration of illness was affected by aging ( r = −0.24).

Conclusions:

Our results demonstrated that schizophrenia patients have impaired olfactory identification ability compared with first-degree relatives and healthy controls, and the impaired olfactory identification ability of first-degree relatives was intermediate between those in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Olfactory identification ability was relatively independent of clinical variables. Therefore, olfactory identification ability might be an intermediate phenotype for schizophrenia.