| dc.description.abstract | ABSTRACT
Food safety is an important public health concern, because a large number of people take their
meals outside the home and are exposed to food borne illnesses. Restaurant workers playa key
role in prevention of occurrences of food borne illnesses besides meeting the goal of serving
safe food. Kisumu, the third largest City in Kenya has an assortment of restaurants serving its
diverse population. Cases of food borne illnesses have continued to be reported in the City for
many years. Whereas contributing factors of unsafe food in restaurants have been documented,
limited studies have been undertaken to assess food safety knowledge, attitude and practice
among restaurant workers in Kisumu city. In order to address this problem, the following
objectives were formulated for the study: To find out the level of food safety knowledge
among restaurant workers, to establish the attitude of restaurant workers toward food safety, to
ascertain the level of food safety practice among restaurant workers and to determine the interrelationships between food safety knowledge, attitude and practice among restaurant workers.
The study considered restaurants which employed 15 workers or more because they were
regarded as large scale food service operators. According to this criterion, 51 restaurants were
identified with a population of 1,190 workers. Creative Research Systems formula was used to
give a sample size of 292 workers. Proportionate random sampling technique based on the
number of employees was used to select the sample for study. Self-administered questionnaires
and interview schedules were used to collect data. Data was analysed using descriptive
statistics namely, frequencies, means and standard deviations. Pearson's product moment
correlation coefficient was used to establish relationships between the variables under study.
Results arising from the study showed that restaurant workers in Kisumu city possess a high
level of knowledge and positive attitude toward food safety. However, their level of food
safety practice was only moderate. Knowledge of food safety exhibited statistically significant
relationship between attitude toward food safety on one hand (r=0.25, p< 0.01), and food
safety practice on the other (r=0.16, p<0.05), Attitude toward food safety also showed
statistically significant relation towards food safety practice(r=0.30, p<O.OI). These results will
aid restaurant managers and trainers in developing training plans and instructional materials as
well as being reference material for those in hospitality industry that have a responsibility of
ensuring safe foodservice in restaurants and other public eating places | en_US |
