Backgrounds and Objectives:The food handling employee education program improves food safety. Determining knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) level of workers who prepare, distribute and sale the food products make easy to control food safety. This study aimed to evaluate effects of intensive food safety education course on KAP of food handlers. in Kermanshah.
Materials andMethods: Knowledge, attitude and practice of 370workers of variety of food handling fields were studied before and after educational intervention course.Avalidated questionnaire about knowledge, attitude based on instruction from Ministry of Health and Medical Sciences for food handling was used for data collection. Paired t-test and Χ² were applied for statistical analysis.
Results: The results showed positive effects of education program on KAP of food handlers. There was significant increase in knowledge marks before and after intervention, 20.5+ 4.03 vs. 23.73 + 3.75 (p<0.001).Attitude and practice of participants were increased significantly before 107.2+14.6; 43.93+7.6 compared to after 112.23+14.5; 46.11+8 intervention respectively (p<0.001). The most increased mark of KAP was belonged to 21-30 years age group.
Conclusion: Our findings confirm that educational intervention improved KAP of food handlers. To increase food safety, running periodical educational courses for the same filed workers with final exam and providing certificate highly recommended.