An assessment of knowledge, attitudes and practices in food safety among food handlers engaged in food courts

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the aspects of knowledge, attitude, and practices about food hygiene and safety issues among food handlers who are working in food courts. A cross-sectional study was conducted at four randomly selected food courts in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia during June and July 2017. It involves 108 respondents that match the inclusion criteria among food handlers. The guided self-administered questionnaire; were divided into three sections which are knowledge, practices, and attitudes. After the complete questionnaires were collected, data were entered and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software version 23.0. Positive correlations were seen between mean knowledge score and mean attitudes score (p-value=0.0240, r=0.217), between attitude score and practices score (p<0.001, r=0.559) and between knowledge score and practices score (p value=0.049, r=0.190). The strongest correlation being between mean attitudes score and mean practices score. Respondents with low knowledge score also had the higher practices score. This paper serves as an eye-opener for policy makers as they can review and improve the knowledge, attitude and practices in food safety among food handlers in food courts and they can also help raise food safety awareness campaign and organize more targeted training in.