Knowledge, attitude, and practice among food handlers of semi-industrial catering: a cross sectional study at one of the governmental organization in Tehran

PURPOSE: food handlers have an important role in transmitting pathogens from raw materials to cooked ones. This study was conducted to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of 95 food handlers on five keys to safer food based on World Health Organization questionnaires in semi-industrial catering in a government office in Tehran. MATERIALS AND METHODS: specialists reviewed the validity of questionnaires and reliability was measured using determination of inter rater agreement, relevancy and clarity of each question, and the tool as a whole was evaluated by the content validity method. The Cronbach’s alpha and repeatability were measured with intra-cluster correlation through repeated test-piloting after one month. RESULTS: In spite of good levels of KAP, lack of knowledge was observed in some items such as cooking thoroughly and keeping food at safe temperatures. All of the participants had good knowledge about washing hands (100% correct answers) and Low level of knowledge with 46.3% correct answers belonged to put cooked meat at room temperature question; in attitude section, 99% of the food handlers were regarded a positive attitude about the cleaning of surface in the kitchen to reduces the risk of illness; a worrying issue is 57% of participants agreed that by looking at foods can distinguish safe and spoiled ones finally 100% of the respondents were considered to have good behavior. Significant relations were found between knowledge and attitude (p < 0.001) and between attitude and practice (p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Educational training and creating motivation to promote knowledge and turning it into practice seem necessary.