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Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers

BACKGROUND: Food handlers have a very important role in preventing food contamination during its preparation and distribution. This responsibility is even greater in hospitals, since a large number of patients have low immunity and consequently food contamination by pathogenic bacteria could be part...

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Autores principales: Bertin, Cilce Helena Figueiredo Preza, Rezende, Magda Andrade, Sigulem, Dirce Maria, Morais, Tania Beninga
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2720910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19630982
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-7-63
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author Bertin, Cilce Helena Figueiredo Preza
Rezende, Magda Andrade
Sigulem, Dirce Maria
Morais, Tania Beninga
author_facet Bertin, Cilce Helena Figueiredo Preza
Rezende, Magda Andrade
Sigulem, Dirce Maria
Morais, Tania Beninga
author_sort Bertin, Cilce Helena Figueiredo Preza
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Food handlers have a very important role in preventing food contamination during its preparation and distribution. This responsibility is even greater in hospitals, since a large number of patients have low immunity and consequently food contamination by pathogenic bacteria could be particularly harmful. Therefore, a good working environment and periodic training should be provided to food handlers by upper management. METHODS: This study is qualitative research by means of focus group and thematic content analysis methodologies to examine, in detail, the statements by food handlers working in the milk and specific-diet kitchens in a hospital to understand the problems they face in the workplace. RESULTS: We found that food handlers are aware of the role they play in restoring patients' health; they consider it important to offer a good-quality diet. However, according to their perceptions, a number of difficulties prevent them from reaching this aim. These include: upper management not prioritizing human and material resources to the dietetic services when making resource allocation decisions; a perception that upper management considers their work to be of lesser importance; delayed overtime payments; lack of periodic training; managers lacking administrative skills; insufficient dietitian staff assistants, leading to overwork, at the same time as there is an excess of dietitians; unhealthy environmental working conditions – high temperature, high humidity, loud and constant noise level, poor ventilation; lack of food, and kitchen utensils and equipment; and relationship conflicts with chief dieticians and co-workers. CONCLUSION: From these findings, improvement in staff motivation could be achieved by considering non-financial incentives, such as improvement in working conditions and showing appreciation and respect through supervision, training and performance appraisal. Management action, such as investments in intermediary management so that managers have the capacity to provide supportive supervision, as well as better use of performance appraisal and access to training, may help overcome the identified problems.
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spelling pubmed-27209102009-08-05 Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers Bertin, Cilce Helena Figueiredo Preza Rezende, Magda Andrade Sigulem, Dirce Maria Morais, Tania Beninga Hum Resour Health Research BACKGROUND: Food handlers have a very important role in preventing food contamination during its preparation and distribution. This responsibility is even greater in hospitals, since a large number of patients have low immunity and consequently food contamination by pathogenic bacteria could be particularly harmful. Therefore, a good working environment and periodic training should be provided to food handlers by upper management. METHODS: This study is qualitative research by means of focus group and thematic content analysis methodologies to examine, in detail, the statements by food handlers working in the milk and specific-diet kitchens in a hospital to understand the problems they face in the workplace. RESULTS: We found that food handlers are aware of the role they play in restoring patients' health; they consider it important to offer a good-quality diet. However, according to their perceptions, a number of difficulties prevent them from reaching this aim. These include: upper management not prioritizing human and material resources to the dietetic services when making resource allocation decisions; a perception that upper management considers their work to be of lesser importance; delayed overtime payments; lack of periodic training; managers lacking administrative skills; insufficient dietitian staff assistants, leading to overwork, at the same time as there is an excess of dietitians; unhealthy environmental working conditions – high temperature, high humidity, loud and constant noise level, poor ventilation; lack of food, and kitchen utensils and equipment; and relationship conflicts with chief dieticians and co-workers. CONCLUSION: From these findings, improvement in staff motivation could be achieved by considering non-financial incentives, such as improvement in working conditions and showing appreciation and respect through supervision, training and performance appraisal. Management action, such as investments in intermediary management so that managers have the capacity to provide supportive supervision, as well as better use of performance appraisal and access to training, may help overcome the identified problems. BioMed Central 2009-07-24 /pmc/articles/PMC2720910/ /pubmed/19630982 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-7-63 Text en Copyright © 2009 Bertin et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Bertin, Cilce Helena Figueiredo Preza
Rezende, Magda Andrade
Sigulem, Dirce Maria
Morais, Tania Beninga
Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers
title Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers
title_full Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers
title_fullStr Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers
title_full_unstemmed Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers
title_short Hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers
title_sort hurdles at work: perceptions of hospital food handlers
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2720910/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19630982
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-7-63
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