Food Safety Knowledge, Attitudes, and Self-Reported Practices Among Medical Staff in China Before, During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Food safety practices of individuals before and after the emergence of COVID-19: A pre- and post-comparative analysis

BACKGROUND

Recent literature highlights both beneficial and adverse effects of COVID-19 on individual food safety practices; however, the actual impact remains unverified, especially in low-resource countries. This study primarily aimed to investigate how COVID-19 has directly and indirectly influenced food safety practices among individuals in Ethiopia.

METHOD

A retrospective survey was used to collect information related to the food safety practices of individuals, both before and after COVID-19. The survey was conducted in one metropolitan city, Addis Ababa, and three regional cities -Dessie, Kombolcha, and Debre Birhan - situated in the Amhara regional state of Ethiopia, between 16 April to 30 June 2023. The food buyers in the selected cities were randomly selected based on their place in queue in randomly selected food shops. As this study aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on individuals' food safety practices in both metropolitan and regional contexts, an equal number of participants were allocated and surveyed from both location types. IBM SPSS Version 28 was used for both data entry and statistical analyses. Following data entry, data cleaning and management were performed using SPSS Syntax commands to prepare the dataset for descriptive and ordinal logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS

Of the 396 sampled individuals, 51.5% were female and the remaining 48.5% were male. Participants' educational level had a statistically significant impact on overall food safety practices both before (p = 0.001, AOR = 0.017) and after (p = 0.001, AOR = 0.002) the emergence of COVID-19. Similarly, the type of work for income generation influenced food safety practices both pre- (p = 0.15, AOR = 0.21) and post- (p = 0.21, AOR = 0.324) COVID-19. Participants' location was significantly associated with their food safety practices only before the emergence of COVID-19 (p = 0.006, AOR = 4.906). Additionally, dummy variables related to living arrangements/family size showed a statistically significant association, with p-values ranging from 0.001 to 0.002 and AOR between 27.578 and 168.937. During both pre- and post-COVID-19 periods, all the dummy variables of cleaning-related predictive variables had significant association with food safety practices - before the pandemic, p-values ranged from 0.001 to 0.023, with AOR between 0.00 and 0.059 and after the pandemic, p-values ranged from 0.001 to 0.017, with AOR between 0.00 and 15.596. Among cooking-related practices, cooking raw food before consumption was significantly associated with food safety practices, with p = 0.004 and AOR = 0.002 before the pandemic, and p = 0.031 and AOR = 0.08 after the pandemic.

CONCLUSIONS

This study found that the emergence of COVID-19 had a positive impact on individuals' food safety practices, as they adhered more closely to food safety standards during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period. Policymakers, food safety regulators, governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as academic and research institutions, are encouraged to develop an integrated food safety sustainability policy. This policy should aim to maintain the advancements in food safety practices that resulted from the implementation of COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

Food safety knowledge attitude and practices of oncology nurses, in Lebanese hospitals

Background

Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment, have a higher risk to foodborne infections as compared to other populations. Oncology nurses, having a direct significant contact with these patients, could be the first information source concerning food safety and play a pivotal role in reducing these risks.

Objective

This study aims to assess the level of knowledge regarding food safety among oncology nurses, as well as their attitudes and practices in private hospitals in Lebanon.

Methods

A self-administered questionnaire was filled by Oncology nurses (n = 134) working in eighteen private hospitals in Lebanon located in Mount Lebanon (n = 11) and Beirut (n = 7).

Results

Overall, oncology nurses scored 76%, 95%, 86.9% and 83.4% on the knowledge, attitude, and practices questions, and overall composite knowledge, attitude, practices (KAP) score, respectively. Knowledge scores were higher among nurses holding a graduate degree (mean = 85; p < 0.05), and those who attended a training course (mean = 79; p < 0.05). Attitude scores of nurses who read brochures were higher (p < 0.001). Attending conferences on food safety showed statistically significant effect on better practice scores (p < 0.001).

Conclusion

Accordingly, the findings highlight the need to develop standardized food safety curriculum and training necessary to allow oncology nurses to contribute to the education of cancer patients and decrease their risk of foodborne infection.

Health-related quality of life in Chinese medical staff: a latent profile analysis

Objective

To investigate subgroups of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the Chinese medical staff and identify the demographic factors associated with these profiles.

Methods

574 Chinese medical staff were surveyed online. HRQoL was measured by using the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey, Version 2. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify the profiles of HRQoL. The associations between HRQoL profiles and covariates were assessed using multinomial logistic regression.

Results

Three HRQoL profiles were developed: low HRQoL at 15.6%, moderate HRQoL at 46.9%, and high HRQoL at 37.6%. Multinomial logistic regression showed night shift times, aerobic exercise conditioning, and personality type significantly predicted the profile membership.

Conclusion

Our findings develop earlier approaches that only used total scores to evaluate this group's HRQoL and help them with tailored interventions to promote better HRQoL.