Knowledge Regarding Maintenance of Food Safety Among Food Handlers at Canteens of a Tertiary Level Hospital of Eastern Nepal

Jamuna Bhattarai; Anu Yadav

Volume : VII, Issue : III, March - 2018

Knowledge Regarding Maintenance of Food Safety Among Food Handlers at Canteens of a Tertiary Level Hospital of Eastern Nepal

Jamuna Bhattarai, Anu Yadav

Abstract :

Background: Food safety is of great concern in the current situation Unsafe food handling practices in food service establishments are a major contributor to the transmission of food–borne illness. This research entitled “Knowledge Regarding Maintenance of Food Safety Among Food Handlers at Canteens of a Tertiary Level Hospital of Eastern Nepal,” was conducted to access the knowledge regarding maintenance of food safety among food handlers and to find out the association of knowledge score by socio–demographic variables.

Method: A descriptive cross–sectional study design was adopted with self–developed semi–structured tool. Interview was used to collect the data. All canteen serving food to NMCTH Biratnagar situated inside and outside of hospital territory was included. All the canteen worker, total 87 were included in study. Data were analyzed by using descriptive as well as One–way ANOVA and independent t–test.

Results: Among 87 respondents, only 41 respondents had heard about food safety. The study also revealed that majority of the respondents i.e. 56.3% had moderate knowledge, 25.3% had inadequate knowledge and 18.4% had adequate knowledge regarding food safety. The result revealed that there is significant difference in mean knowledge score of the maintenance of food safety by age (P=0.033), educational level (P=0.040), work experience (p=0.006) and monthly income (P=0.000).

Conclusion: The study showed that majority of respondents had moderate knowledge regarding maintenance of food safety. Thus, the study concluded that efforts should be made to increase the knowledge regarding maintenance of food safety among food handlers.