• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.73-86
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• 2019

Seafaring is an important occupation that requires stringent hand hygiene practices as a basic method for preventing food-borne illness and infectious diseases when the diseases occur on board. The purpose of this study is to provide fundamental data for the prevention of food-borne illness and infectious disease on the ship by investigating the level of hand hygiene practices and influencing factors. A total of 222 seafarers were surveyed at a seafarers' educational institution between July and August 2017. Their hand hygiene practice were examined by a modified method using the guidelines which are recommended by the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Hand Hygiene Australia. The mean of hand hygiene practice was 47.97 out of 75 points. By category, the most frequent hand hygiene practice was measured as 4.04 on a 5-point scale as 'after working'. Factors affecting hand hygiene practices were ship tonnage relating to in job characteristics, exercise in health-related characteristics, and soap in relation to the characteristics of the hand hygiene environment on board. To improve hand hygiene among seafarers, it is necessary to raise awareness of hand hygiene among seafarers who work on small ships in particular, and to improve the systems of hand hygiene on ships with continuous education, hygiene practice evaluation and feedback.