Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Departments of Hospital Administration
2 Departments of Dietetics
3 Departments Community Medicine, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Food handlers with poor personal hygiene and lack of awareness in preventing
foodborne diseases working in hospitality sectors or hospitals could spread foodborne infections.
OBJECTIVE: Our study objective was to ascertain the impact of a video‑based educational
intervention program and administrative measures on improvement in personal hygiene of food
handlers in hospital.
METHODOLOGY: We conducted this pilot study among all 103 food handlers who were working in
a tertiary care hospital. A checklist‑based scoring and physical examination were conducted by the
investigator for the food handlers. After baseline scoring S1, intervention 1 and 2 was implemented,
and score was obtained as S2 and S3, respectively. Descriptive statistics was calculated, and score
was compared by repeated measures ANOVA test using SPSS‑22 software.
RESULTS: Our study revealed that a total of 19.2% of food handlers had health complaints. More than
half (54.8%) admitted that they had suffered from any kind of illness since last 6 months. Common illness
was viral fever (40.3%) followed by typhoid (5.7%), dengue (4.8%) and urinary tract infection (3.8%).
Most of the food handlers had long hair (62.5%) followed by long nail (57.69%). Nearly, one‑fifth (20.1%)
of food handlers nail was infected with fungus. Worm was found in 14.4% cases by stool examination.
Statistically significant (P < 0.05) improvement in score was observed after each intervention.
DISCUSSION: Poor hygiene (Score‑1 = 23.76) was observed at baseline study although there
was a mechanism in place for a yearly health checkup and regular (6 monthly) hygiene training.
After interventions (video‑based training and administrative measures), the score was improved to
Score‑3 (42.57). Statistically significant(P< 0.05) differences in hygiene score were observed for variables
such as state of residence, education level, and working experiences (inside or outside the hospital).
CONCLUSION: It is possible to improve personal hygiene among food handlers using video‑based
interactive training methods and administrative measures with no extra or minimal cost.
RECOMMENDATIONS: This “piggyback” approach of training can be imparted in addition to routine
training measures among the food handlers for improving their personal hygiene in the hospital setting.
Keywords
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