Olfactory Performance in Culinary Arts Students

October 4, 2023 updated by: Leigh Sowerby

The COVID-19 pandemic brought impaired smell and taste to the forefront of international public awareness and clinical importance. Loss of smell can impair awareness of environmental hazards, alter appetite, and have negative effects on social behavior and well-being. Despite the significant functional impact associated with impaired olfaction, few effective treatments are available. Olfactory training (OT), the mainstay of treatment, is a self-administered therapy which involves a routine of repetitive brief odor exposures over several weeks. The process has been shown to improve odor discrimination, identification and detection threshold. However, the structured design and daily time commitment may be difficult to adopt for some patients, leading to poor compliance. Moreover, OT only exposes patients to a limited number of odours, failing to replicate the complexity of odor mixtures experienced daily in our chemosensory environment. OT has mainly been studied with four conventional odours encompassing the major odor categories; phenyl ethyl alcohol/rose (flowery odor), eucalyptol (aromatic), citronellal/lemon (fruity), and eugenol (clove) (resinous); however, this neglects the importance of emphasizing odors that culturally specific or personally relevant to the patient. For some patients, these factors could hinder their ability to adopt and comply with therapy.

In contrast, cooking is a culturally ubiquitous activity that is already performed daily by most people, and naturally exposes us to personally meaningful and culturally relevant odors. However, there have been no published studies investigating the impact that odors encountered during meal preparation have on olfactory performance and development. The present study aims to compare the olfactory effects of culinary skills training to those of a conventionally designed OT program. To achieve this, olfactory testing will be conducted on students enrolled in a professional culinary skills training program at Fanshawe College, and a control group consisting of students in non-olfactory dependent programs at the same institution. To compare the effect of cooking to conventional OT, the study will be repeated for a second semester and students will be asked to perform concurrent OT.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This factorially designed randomized control trial is designed to compare the effects of a culinary skills training program to a typical olfactory training program on olfactory ability, awareness, and quality of life. Students enrolled in a culinary skills training program and those in a different discipline with no relevant dependence on olfactory function (information technology) will have their olfactory performance assessed before and after the completion of the program semester. The investigators will then repeat the experiment in the subsequent semester with a new group of students, asking them to perform routine OT throughout the semester.

Objective olfactory assessment will be performed with the Sniffin'Sticks olfactory test kit (Burghart, Wedel, Germany). Additionally, they will be asked to complete questionnaires that evaluate their olfactory awareness, the 32-item Odor Awareness Scale. The study aims to compare the effect of routine exposure to the chemosensory environment of cooking with conventional odor training (OT) in improving olfactory function.

Hypothesis and Objectives Objective 1: To compare the effect of culinary skill training to a control group on objective olfactory performance, subjective olfactory awareness and olfactory related quality of life.

  • Hypothesis 1: Participants who complete a semester of culinary skill training will experience improvements in odor threshold discrimination identification scores compared to students studying in non-chemosensory dependent fields.
  • Hypothesis 2: Participants who complete a semester of culinary skill training will experience improvements in subjective odor awareness compared to students studying in non- chemosensory dependent fields.
  • Hypothesis 3: Participants who complete a semester of culinary skill training will experience improvements in olfactory specific quality of life compared to students studying in non- chemosensory dependent fields.

Objective 2: To compare the effect of culinary skill training with OT to conventional OT on objective olfactory performance, subjective olfactory awareness and olfactory related quality of life

  • Hypothesis 1: Participants who complete a semester of culinary skill training with OT will experience further improvements in odor their threshold discrimination identification scores.
  • Hypothesis 2: Participants who complete a semester of culinary skill training with OT will experience improvements in subjective odor awareness that are greater in magnitude to the improvements gained by participants practicing OT.
  • Hypothesis 3: Participants who complete a semester of culinary skill training with OT will experience improvements in olfactory specific quality of life that are greater in magnitude to the improvements gained by participants practicing OT.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

120

Phase

  • Phase 4

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • Canada
    • Ontario
      • London, Ontario, Canada, N5Y 5R6

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • age 18 years or older
  • enrolled in an introductory training program at Fanshawe collage (Culinary arts or Information Technology)
  • capable of providing informed written consent
  • capable of reading and writing in English

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Participants with a history of anosmia, and chronic sinus disease.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Non-Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Olfactory training - Culinary arts students
Students in culinary skill training program will perform olfactory training by sniffing four specific essential oils twice daily, over the entire semester (4-month period). The odors will comprise four major odor categories: flowery (phenyl ethyl alcohol/rose), aromatic (eucalyptol), fruity (citronellal/lemon), and resinous (eugenol). They will be assessed before and after the school semester.
Other: Olfactory training
Olfactory training will be performed by sniffing four specific essential oils twice daily for 30 seconds each. Participants are encouraged to visualize the item they are smelling, while they perform the procedure, in a quiet room, with their eyes closed. The odors will comprise four major odor categories: flowery (phenyl ethyl alcohol/rose), aromatic (eucalyptol), fruity (citronellal/lemon), and resinous (eugenol).
Other Names:
  • Smell training
  • Smell Rehabilitation
  • Olfactory Rehabilitation
No Intervention: Control group - Culinary arts students
Students in culinary skill training program will be assessed before and after the school semester, without any intervention throughout this period.
Experimental: Olfactory training - Information Technology students
Students in Information Technology program will perform olfactory training by sniffing four specific essential oils twice daily, over the entire semester (4-month period). The odors will comprise four major odor categories: flowery (phenyl ethyl alcohol/rose), aromatic (eucalyptol), fruity (citronellal/lemon), and resinous (eugenol). They will be assessed before and after the school semester.
Other: Olfactory training
Olfactory training will be performed by sniffing four specific essential oils twice daily for 30 seconds each. Participants are encouraged to visualize the item they are smelling, while they perform the procedure, in a quiet room, with their eyes closed. The odors will comprise four major odor categories: flowery (phenyl ethyl alcohol/rose), aromatic (eucalyptol), fruity (citronellal/lemon), and resinous (eugenol).
Other Names:
  • Smell training
  • Smell Rehabilitation
  • Olfactory Rehabilitation
No Intervention: Control group - Information Technology students
Students in Information Technology program will be assessed before and after the school semester, without any intervention throughout this period.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Odor threshold discrimination identification scores
Time Frame: Baseline, 4 months (after school semester)
Changes from Baseline (before the school semester) on Sniffin Stick test scores considering the three olfactory dimensions (threshold, discrimination, and identification). Higher scores in this test mean better olfactory status.
Baseline, 4 months (after school semester)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Subjective odor awareness
Time Frame: Baseline, 4 months (after school semester)
Changes from Baseline (before the school semester) on the Odor Awareness Scale. The Odor Awareness Scale questionnaire evaluates the effects of odors on attention, emotion, memory, product purchase, and the sensitivity and importance of odors. This questionnaire broadly covers odor situations pertaining to eating, drinking, nature, and social interactions. Higher scores in this test mean better olfactory status and better odor awareness.
Baseline, 4 months (after school semester)
Olfactory specific quality of life
Time Frame: Baseline, 4 months (after school semester)
Changes from Baseline (before the school semester) on the Odor Awareness Scale. The Odor Awareness Scale questionnaire evaluates the effects of odors on attention, emotion, memory, product purchase, and the sensitivity and importance of odors. This questionnaire broadly covers odor situations pertaining to eating, drinking, nature, and social interactions. Higher scores in this test mean better olfactory status and better olfactory-specific quality of life.
Baseline, 4 months (after school semester)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Leigh Sowerby

Collaborators

Fanshawe College

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 25, 2023

Primary Completion (Estimated)

September 25, 2024

Study Completion (Estimated)

November 21, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 27, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 27, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

October 4, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

October 6, 2023

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 4, 2023

Last Verified

October 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 23-06-11-1

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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