Food Hygiene Practices among Food Handlers in Government Tertiary Institutions in Enugu State

Abstract

This study investigated food hygiene practices among food handlers in government tertiary institutions in Enugu State. Five research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. All 571 (male, 135, female, 436) food handlers in government tertiary institutions in Enugu State were used for the study. A self-developed structured questionnaire titled: Food Hygiene Practices Questionnaire (FHPQ) was used as an instrument for data collection. The instrument had an overall reliability coefficient of r=0.95. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistic was used to test the research hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that food handlers in government tertiary institutions in Enugu State had very good hand washing and personal practices but had good environmental sanitation and culinary hygiene practices. Female had very good food hygiene practices ( x  =3.25 ±0.20) while male had bad hygiene practice ( x  =2.22 ± 0.41). Furthermore, there was a significant difference in the level of food hygiene practices among food handlers in government tertiary institutions in Enugu State based on gender (p<0.05). Based on the findings, the study recommended among others that educational programmes targeted to change the practice of food handlers need to be offered by health educators especially to male ones and to transform the high practices of food hygiene practices of the food handlers in the study areas into concrete actions to maximize or to sustain this practices.