Title
Food safety and hygiene education improves the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Saudi dietetics students
Authors
Wejdan T Alghafari* & Leila Arfaoui
Affiliation
Clinical Nutrition Department, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; *Corresponding author
Wejdan T Alghafari – E-mail: walghefari@kau.edu.sa
Tel.: +96 6126401000 # 24473
Article Type
Research Article
Date
Received September 2, 2022; Revised October 3, 2022; Accepted October 16, 2022, Published October 31, 2022
Abstract
The objective of the study is to evaluate the effect of food safety and hygiene course on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of dietetics students. A repeated measure pre/post-intervention study was used to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported practices regarding food safety and hygiene among undergraduate dietetics students (n = 63) enrolled in a course on food safety and hygiene in Saudi Arabia. Students were asked to complete an online questionnaire divided into five sections that covered key food-safety concepts before and at the end of the course to determine changes in these variables. Overall, students’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices improved significantly after attending the course on food safety and hygiene. Scores for total knowledge increased from 16.51±2.60 before the course to 20.60±2.01 after it (p < 0.001). The total score for attitudes improved from 9.16±1.43 before the course to 9.92±0.27 after it (p < 0.001). The total score for practices increased from 11.0±3.10 before the course to 14.78±3.41 after it (p < 0.001).The course on food safety and hygiene helped to improve the knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported practices of food safety by dietetics students.
Keywords
Dietetics students, knowledge, attitude, practice, food safety and hygiene course, education.
Citation
Alghafari & Arfaoui, Bioinformation 18(10): 900-907 (2022)
Edited by
P Kangueane
ISSN
0973-2063
Publisher
License
This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
