Conhecimentos e práticas de manipuladores de restaurantes populares e sua relação com a segurança dos alimentos

Abstract

The Restaurant Popular Program aims to offer appropriate meals concerning nutritional and hygienic-sanitary conditions with lower prices for population groups that live in an unsafety situation. Food handlers have such an important role through meals production because they can be a vector of food poisoning. That is why it is essential to investigate aspects related to food handlers’ formation and their hygienic practices. This study evaluated knowledge, self-reported and observed practices of food handlers concerning food safety at Restaurant Popular in Rio Grande do Norte State, Brazil. We applied a questionnaire with all food handlers from 10 selected unities from different towns, which sums 70 food handlers. This questionnaire registered levels food handlers knowledge and self-reported practices. Food safety practices were registered by the researchers themselves through a checklist. Besides, we evaluated hygienic-sanitary conditions of facilities we visited. Food handlers knowledge about food safety reached a percentage of 72.64%. Self-reported practices presented a mean of 80.71%. It was observed that food handlers knowledge presented significant positive correlation (p<0.05) with the self-reported practices. However, there was no correlation among their practices and other variants. There was no association between socio-demographic data and knowledge and self-reported practices variables. Average overall of hygienic-sanitary conditions reached 68.08% and this amount classifies those unities as regular. The hygienic-sanitary conditions no correlated positively with the food handlers knowledge and self-reported practices. The inappropriate conditions we noticed at those unities related, specially, to facilities and documentation and registers, and these aspects are not under food handlers’ responsibilities. They should be under responsibility of technical manager at each unity. Results suggest an importance to elucidate issues that influence food handlers’ behavior as a guarantee of a safe meal production e and the need to sensitize unit managers to comply with good practices.