Food safety knowledge, attitude and food handling practices of students

Abstract

Purpose -The number of reported food-borne illnesses has increased recently in the world. In this respect, this study is carried out with the aim of investigating the food safety knowledge, attitude and food handling practices of university students in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach -Questionnaires were applied to 1,340 people volunteered in the study, regarding their knowledge, attitude and practices. The research data was collected through a face-to-face questionnaire. An overall number of 1,340 university students from three different institutions were included in this study. Gender distribution was 54.6 per cent for male while that of female was 45.4 per cent, and age range was between 18-24 years. Findings -Depending on the respondents' gender, a statistically significant difference was found between male and female participants on total food safety knowledge, attitude and practice scores (p , 0.001). In addition, there was a statistically significant difference between students' institutes (p , 0.001). Also, a correlation was found between food safety knowledge attitude and practice (p , 0.001).Research limitations/implications -Because the population of this study consisted of university students from different faculties in the city of Ankara, the results cannot be generalized to all students or to all ages. Comment on the results is limited due to responses being self reported, which are prone to bias by the subjects. Originality/value -To the best of the authors' knowledge, limited studies focused on university students have been found in the Turkish literature and there is a lack of study concerning food safety knowledge, attitude and practice of university students in Ankara, Turkey. The originality of this study is to assess the level of food safety attitude, knowledge and food handling practice to investigate the association between the students' institutions and gender among university students in Turkey. There is a need to assess the food safety knowledge, attitude and practice of this target group as they are more likely to engage in risky eating behaviors, thus are more susceptible to food-borne illnesses and they are more likely to engage in risky food handling practices because of their future roles as parents and food preparers for his/her family.

Food safety knowledge of undergraduate students at a Canadian university: results of an online survey

“…Food safety knowledge also appears to be inadequate among university students outside of the U.S. For example, both female students in Jordan (37.39 out of 81 [31]) and Greek students (6 out of 13 [32]) averaged 46 % correct answers to food safety knowledge questions, while Lebanese students averaged 54 % correct answers [33], and students in Turkey averaged 57 % (11.97 out of 21 [34]). Students in Saudi Arabia averaged 75 % correct answers to 15 knowledge questions [35].…”

The Efficacy of Food Handler Training: The Transtheoretical Model in Focus, Brazil, 2013

“…Quality is a subject of interest and concern in food access, where the innocuousness aspect deserves special focus (Sanlier & Konaklioglu, 2012). The participation of the food handler in the epidemiological chain of food poisoning and other Foodborne Diseases (FbD), has been observed by several researchers (Control & Prevention, 2013;Piacentini & Silva, 2014).…”

Restaurant Employees’ Food Handling Practices in Irbid City, Jordan

“…The third group of studies explored the role of food safety knowledge in improving food handlers' practices. Examples of these studies are: Walker et al (2003), Bas et al (2006), Pragle et al (2007), Howells et al (2008), Sanlier and Konaklioglu (2012), Soares et al (2012), Sharif et al (2013), Kubde et al (2016) and Akabanda et al (2017); the majority in this group employed the Knowledge Attitudes Practice (KAP) model. It suggests that increasing of individuals' knowledge, will change their attitudes toward certain behaviour and so ultimately generates a behavioural alteration (Rennie, 1995).…”