Socio-demographic factors and availability of piped fountains affect food hygiene practice of food handlers in Bahir Dar Town, northwest Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

BackgroundMorbidity and mortality rates of food borne diseases are consistently highest in African due to poor food handling and sanitation practices. Thus, the study aimed to assess food handling practice and associated factors among food handlers of Restaurants in Bahir Dar Town, northwest, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study was conducted from December, 7/2012 to January, 2/2013 among food handlers working in 106 restaurants in Bahir Dar Town. A structured questionnaire composed of socio-demographic factors, food safety knowledge, working environmental characteristics and food hygiene practice of food handlers was employed to collect the data via interviewing and observations. Binary logistic regression model was fitted to assess factors associated with food hygiene practice after multi-collinearity and outlier were checked and data was clean. Both crude odds ratio (COR) and adjusted odds ratio (AOR) were estimated to show the strength of association. In multivariate analysis, variables with a P value of ≤ 0.05 were considered as statistical significant.ResultsAbout 67.6% [95% confidence interval (CI) 58.8, 76.4] of food handlers had good food hygiene practice, whereas 32.4% of food handlers had poor food hygiene practice. The odds of having good food hygiene practice was higher among food handlers who had received food safety training [AOR: 4.7, 95% CI 1.7, 12.8], had formal education [AOR: 6.4, 95% CI 3.5, 11.5] and work experiences greater than 2 years [AOR: 3.4, 95% CI 1.8, 6.4]. At last, food handlers working in restaurants which had piped fountains for hand wash were 2.1 times more likely to have good food hygiene practice[AOR: 2.1, 95% CI 1.1, 3.8].ConclusionIn this study, the overall food hygiene practice of food handlers is not to the acceptable level. Therefore, endeavors ought to be reinforced to improve food hygiene practices of food handlers through intervention programs such as training and education. Also emphasis should be given on the accessibility of piped fountains for the better food handling practice of food handlers.

Food handling practice and associated factors among food handlers working in food establishments in Woldia town, Northeast Ethiopia

“…In addition, the odds of performing good food handling practice among food handlers who had 6-10 years' experience were 2.43 time higher as compared to those who hadn't. This finding was consistent with the study in Bahirdar, which had revealed that food handlers who had greater than 2years work experience were 3.4 times likely to have good food handling practice [4]. Similarly, Gizaw et al (2014) had mentioned that food handlers who had 3years experience were 3.37 times likely to have good food handling practice [26].…”

“…Similarly, food handlers who had attained education above grad twelve were 2.29 times more likely to have good food handling practices as compared to illiterates. This result was consistence with the study conducted in Bahirdar, which revealed that food handlers who had formal education were 6.4 times more likely to have good food handling practices [4]. This is because the depth of knowledge could affect food handler's food handling practices.…”

“…This study had shown that good food handling practice was 134(46.5%)[95% CI 41.00, 52.40]. This result was lower than studies in Dangila 52.2% [1], Bahirdar 67.6% [4], Malaysia 54.7% [14], Nigeria 54.7% [23], and Mekelle 63.9% [24]. This difference could be due to differences in food handler's sociodemographic and environmental determinant variations in these study groups.…”

“…The odds of good food handling practice among participants who had received formal training were higher as compare to those who hadn't. This is evidenced by few earlier studies [4,28,30,31]. A study conducted in Bahirdar revealed that food handlers who received formal training were 4.7 times more likely to have proper food handling practices [4].…”

“…This could be due to the high proportion of improper food handling and unhygienic practices, the deficiency of food safety laws, the low level of food handlers' knowledge, attitude and practice on food safety [1,2]. Foodborne disease related morbidity and mortality in developing countries, particularly in Africa are steadily highest due to low food handling and poor food hygienic practices at food preparation or service areas [4]. As few previous studies mentioned that the utmost contributing factors for potential foodborne pathogen outbreaks which had raised in food establishments are due to insanitary conditions of the food service establishments [5,6], food handler's poor personal and food hygienic practices [2,[5][6][7][8][9][10], and inadequate food handler's food handling knowledge [11][12][13].…”