Publication:

Poultry shop based hygiene practices: a knowledge, attitudes, and practices study on poultry shop personnel of selected districts of Bangladesh

Background Food-borne disease outbreaks remain a major global health problem, and cross-contamination from raw meat is a major cause in developed countries due to inadequate handling. The goal of this study was to assess the poultry shop personnel's knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) in the selected districts of Bangladesh.

Methods 103 poultry shop personnel were involved in this cross-sectional study.

Results A significant association was observed between the poultry shop personnel and the knowledge (p<0.05), attitudes (p<0.05), and practices (p<0.05) of safe meat-handling. The 68.3% of poultry shop personnel had good, 26.9% had moderate, while only 4.8% of poultry shop personnel had poor knowledge about hygiene practices. The 5.8% of poultry shop personnel showed poor, 19.2% showed moderate and 75% of poultry shop personnel showed good attitude towards hygiene practices. But the poultry shop personnel 36.5% had poor, 44.2% had moderate and only 20% showed good practice of hygiene practices. The knowledge, attitude and practice Mean±SD score of poultry shop personnel was 7.38±2.04, 7.87±2.24 and 4.41±2.38 respectively, indicating that poultry shop personnel had good knowledge and attitude but poor practice. We also found that 42% of poultry shops and poultry shop personnel had maintained totally unhygienic workplace, 56% had moderately hygienic, and while only 2% poultry shops and poultry shop personnel had maintained fully hygienic workplace. Further, linear regression analysis revealed that KAP levels have been significantly associated with age, education, and the majority of knowledge, attitudes, and practice related questions (p<0.05).

Conclusions Public health awareness about safe poultry meat handling and hygiene among poultry shop personnel, in general, should be at the front burner.