Abstract
BackgroundIn large scale cooking, food is handled by many individuals, thereby increasing the chances of food contamination due to improper handling. Deliberate or accidental contamination of food during large scale production might endanger the health of consumers, and have very expensive repercussions on a country. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the food safety knowledge, attitudes, and practices among institutional food- handlers in Ghana.MethodsThe study was conducted using a descriptive, cross-sectional survey of 29 institutions by conducting face to face interview and administration of questionnaire to two hundred and thirty-five (235) institutional food-handlers. The questionnaire was peer-reviewed and pilot tested in three institutions in the Upper East Region of Ghana, before the final version was distributed to food-handlers. The questionnaire was structured into five distinctive parts to collect information on (i) demographic characteristics, (ii) employees’ work satisfaction, (iii) knowledge on food safety, (iv) attitudes towards food safety and (v) food hygiene practices.ResultsMajority of the food-handlers were between 41–50 years (39.1%). Female respondents were (76.6%). In our study, the food-handlers were knowledgeable about hygienic practices, cleaning and sanitation procedures. Almost all of the food-handlers were aware of the critical role of general sanitary practices in the work place, such as hand washing (98.7% correct answers), using gloves (77.9%), proper cleaning of the instruments/utensils (86.4%) and detergent use (72.8%). On disease transmission, the results indicates that 76.2% of the food- handlers did not know that Salmonella is a food borne pathogens and 70.6% did not know that hepatitis A is a food borne pathogen. However, 81.7% handlers agreed that typhoid fever is transmitted by food and 87.7% agreed that bloody diarrhea is transmitted by food. Logistic regression analysis testing four models showed statistically significant differences (p < 0.05), for models in which the explanatory variable was the level of education.ConclusionsIn generally, the institutional food-handlers have satisfactory knowledge in food safety but this does not translate into strict hygienic practices during processing and handling food products.
Highlights
In large scale cooking, food is handled by many individuals, thereby increasing the chances of food contamination due to improper handling
Out of the 235 food-handlers who participated in this study, 76.6% (n = 180) were female while 23.4% (n = 55) were males
A previous study demonstrated that irrespective of educational level, employees performance in food safety knowledge was not satisfactory and a cause for public concern [29]
Summary
Food is handled by many individuals, thereby increasing the chances of food contamination due to improper handling. When food is cooked on a large scale, it may be handled by many individuals and increasing the chances of contamination of the final food. Unintended contamination of food during large scale cooking, leading to food-borne disease outbreaks can pose danger to the health of consumers and economic consequence for nations [1,2,3]. Food-borne related illnesses have increased over the years, and negatively affected the health and economic well-being of many developing nations [4]. Unhygienic practices during food preparation, handling and storage creates the conditions that allows the proliferation and transmission of disease causing organisms such as bacteria, viruses and other food-borne pathogens [7, 8]. Many reported cases of food-borne viral diseases have been attributed to infected food-handlers involved in catering services [9]
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