A Study on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Food Safety & Hygiene among the Students of a Private University of Delhi, NCR

Abstract

Background: In India, food safety and hygiene are a growing concern with emerging incidents of food contaminants which if remains unnoticed can lead to various health hazards, illness, outbreaks and even death. Objective: To study knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) towards food safety and hygiene among students of a private university of Delhi, NCR. Method: A Cross-Sectional study design using self-administered, pre-tested questionnaire containing a total of 40 questions was conducted among 500 private university students in Delhi, NCR. Information was collected from various disciplines through self-administered survey forms. For assessing the knowledge, a score of 1 and 0 was given to every correct and incorrect answers respectively. For assessing Attitude and Practice each correct response was awarded a score of 2, for neutral response a score of 1 and for incorrect response a score of 0 was awarded. Quartiles were generated for each component. Based on quartiles, knowledge, attitude and practice were divided into adequate and inadequate. Result: The study participants included 31.6% males and 68.4% females. 29% participants belonged to postgraduate course and 71.1% from undergraduate course. Regarding food safety & hygiene, 74.8% participants had adequate knowledge, 53% had adequate attitude and 46% had adequate practice. Conclusion: Continuous education is necessary to increase the awareness among young adults in the near future; they will be the ones directly handling food and play an important role to help maintain a hygienic and clean environment. Keywords: Food safety; Food hygiene; Food Borne Disease; Knowledge; Attitude; Practice