KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF FEMALE TEACHERS REGARDING SAFE FOOD HANDLING; IS IT SUFFICIENT? AN INTERVENTION STUDY, ZAGAZIG, EGYPT

Introduction: Food borne diseases are one of the major health problems in developing and developed countries. Safe food handling at the household level is much acknowledged and an understanding of the interaction on prevailing safe food handling knowledge, beliefs and practices in order to minimize food borne outbreaks required. Aim of work: to 1- To determine level and sources of Knowledge of female teachers regarding safe food handling. 2- To assess their Attitude and Practice regarding safe food handling. 3- To evaluate the effectiveness of a health education program on Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) of safe food handling among participants. Materials and methods: An intervention study was carried out from November 2015 to October 2016 among forty two (42) secondary school female teachers in Zagazig, Egypt. A pre-test was performed to determine level of KAP of safe food handling among participants through a face-to-face interview. Health education program was implemented to educate the participants in order to improve their KAP regarding safe food handling. Three months later a post-test questionnaire identical to the pre-test was done. Results: The mean age of the participants was 34.2±9.7, more than half of them were married (55.4%) and about one third of them acquired their safe food handling knowledge from the mass media. About two thirds (64.3%) of their house hold personnel suffered from self-limited gastroenteritis during the last three months. There was a highly significant improvement in Knowledge after intervention (p 0.05). The total KAP level was significantly improved (p<0.05). Conclusion: the majority of respondents had unsatisfactory level of total KAP about safe food handling, both Knowledge and Attitude significantly improved after intervention. Items of purchasing and storage, safe food cooking were the most improved items in Knowledge and Attitude respectively. However, there was no effect of intervention on Practice level.

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