Abstract
Food safety knowledge (FSK) plays an important role in guiding food handlers (FHs) practices during food operations. The aim of this research was to investigate the level of FSK among FHs in hospitals' food services in Jordan. Up to 245 food handlers work in hospitals were purposefully selected from 6 public and private hospitals. A published FSK questionnaire included 120 items in 6 subscales was used to collect data. Most of the hospitals' FHs were male (91.84, n=225), of mean age 35.89 ± 9.26 years, with average experience of 12.55 ± 8.1 years, education of less than high school, and worked in public hospitals. The overall FSK was found to be
Highlights
Food Safety (FS) is emphasized as a basic individual right
The second part was the Food Safety Knowledge Questionnaire (FSKQ) which was adopted from previous validated questionnaires published on FS issues [15, 19,20,21,22,23]
Relevant to hospitals' sectors, 134 (55.0%) food handlers (FHs) were recruited from the public sector and 111 (45.0%) from private sector
Summary
Food Safety (FS) is emphasized as a basic individual right. Foodborne diseases represent a considerable burden to public health and continue to challenge health systems worldwide [1]. Available estimates emphasize that there are about 600 million people fall ill worldwide annually for consuming contaminated food, with diarrheal diseases being the most common form of these illnesses [3]. Several studies indicate that a great proportion of foodborne diseases are associated with foodservices establishments including hospitals [5]. It has been indicated that many foodborne diseases are transmitted to patients in hospitals that may worsen their condition, specially, if they are immunosuppressed [6]. These diseases are caused by a variety of chemicals or pathogenic microorganisms that may contaminate food at different steps of its preparation [7, 8].
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