Study of Food Handling Behaviors among Women in Kerman in 2013

Backgroun: Food-born diseases are caused by entrance of microbial pathogens into food chain and handling is the main cause of food-born disease transportation. A lot of studies have been accomplished in other countries and some progress in food handling behaviors has been identified. Because of the importance of the issue and limited studies in Iran, the current study was carried out with the aim of investigating food handling behaviors among woman in Kerman. This is a cross-sectional study. Research community was a group of women in Kerman being responsible for home food preparation. Data were collected using a questionnaire subsuming personal characteristics and food handling behaviors in the four sections of Cleaning, Separating, Cooking and Chilling. A total number of 320 women participated in the study with cluster random sampling. ANOVA and frequency distribution tables were used for data analysis. Totally, 52% of the participants prepared their foods always at home and 44.4% consumed outdoor foods less than 1 servings per week. Participants earned 34.52±2/94 out of 40 scores in clean section, 30.99±2.97 out of 36 scores in cross contamination section, 26.25±2.54 out of 32 scores in cooking section and 37.87±2.88 out of 56 in chilling section. In cleaning section the most reported behaviors were washing hand after raw meat, chicken and fish exposure and avoiding unwashed fruits consumption. The most reported unhealthy behavior in this section was tasting food for decay. In cross contamination section, the most unhealthy reported behavior was putting raw meat lower than cooked meat in refrigerator. In cooking section, reported behavior was not consuming raw local milk and the less reported behavior was bubbling the conserved foods for at least 20 minutes. The less reported behavior in chilling section was cooling the cooked food in the room temperature and the most reported behavior was maintaining egg in refrigerator. There was no significant difference in mean score of food handling behaviors and the demographic subscales such as age, educational level, job, marriage status, family size and number of children.. Also there was not a significant difference in mean score of food handling behaviors by number of food serving which were prepared at home and also number of outside meals. The level of food handling behavior among participants are not at a favorable level especially in chilling section which can be due to their low level of knowledge in this area. Therefore, researches and educational programs should be conducted addressing the strong and weak orientations in each section of food handling behaviors.