Effectiveness of HACCP-based Training on the Food Safety Knowledge and Behavior of Hospital Foodservice Employees

To prevent food-borne diseases and ensure food safety, foodservice operators have been implementing the HACCP system in their facilities. Employees' knowledge of food safety can be improved through training and, as a result, their food safety behavior can be positively changed. A nonequivalent pretest and posttest control group model was designed to investigate the effectiveness of HACCP-based training on hospital foodservice employees' food safety knowledge and behavior, and to determine relationships between food safety knowledge and food safety behavior. The subjects used in this study were 84 hospital foodservice employees, assigned either to the intervention group (n=44) or the control group (n=40). Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics were computed, while the Student's t-test and ANCOVA (Analysis of Covariance) were used to investigate significant differences between groups, and the Pearson correlation was used to determine significant correlations. There were significant gains in both food safety knowledge and behavior, after the HACCP-based training. However, no significant correlation was found between food safety knowledge and food safety behavior. Based on this study we conclude that HACCP-based training is effective in improving both the food safety knowledge and food safety behavior of hospital foodservice employees.