Abstract

Food safety is a crucial strategy to control foodborne diseases and improve communities’ health. The study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice level of public restaurant’ food handlers. This cross-sectional study was carried out from May to July 2019 in Kerman city, southeast of Iran. Data were collected using World Health Organization questionnaires on food safety. The mean (SD) scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice of the respondents were 61.2 (16.9), 76.4 (12.3) and 63.1 (10.2), respectively. The mean scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice were not significantly different in terms of the independent variables. There were direct correlation between food safety knowledge and practice (r=.305, P<.0001), the knowledge and attitude (r=.271, P<.0001) (r=.415, P<.0001) as well as between food safety attitude and practice. Thawing frozen food in the refrigerator or other cool places (44.8), storing any left-overs of cooked meal in a cool place within two hours (43.7), reheating cooked food until it is piping hot throughout (42.6), and using separate utensils and cutting boards when preparing raw and cooked food (42.3) were the areas with the maximum unsatisfactory practice, respectively. as a result, the food handlers had a relatively positive attitude toward food safety but their knowledge and practice level were not satisfactory. © 2020, Dorma Journals. All rights reserved.