A KAP Study on Food Safety and Hygiene Among Private University Students in Kedah State, Malaysia

Objective: To assess the student’s Knowledge, Attitude and Perception (KAP) towards food safety and hygiene in a private University campus catering food to students. Method: This is a cross sectional study, using prevalidated questionnaire containing three sections and a total of 36 items. The survey was conducted in a private (AIMST) University campus involving students of various disciplines through self-administered survey forms. The completed questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS version 23 and statistical significance was assessed using Chi-square test. The correlations of KAP score towards the independent demographic variables and the presence of predictor variables using linear regression was done. Result: Among 869 respondents, the KAP scores based on socio-demographic variable were found to be significant in relation to the independent variables. The median KAP score was 92(11), with a minimum (48) and maximum (104). In the gender category, more than half of the respondents were female, among the course of study more than half had an overall positive KAP score (90%) regarding food safety and hygiene. Overall, all of the courses had attained a good KAP score when compared to moderate and poor score. Among the type of diet category, an overall good KAP score (90%) was observed with non-vegetarian, showed positive scoring compared to vegetarians. The Spearman’s correlation of knowledge, attitude and perception scores were found to be positively correlated [r(869) = .902, p < .001] with KAP scores. Conclusion: Majority of respondents showed good knowledge, attitude, and perception towards all domains and showed significant results and correlation. Continuous education is necessary to increase the awareness among young adults in the near future; they will be the ones directly handling food and play an important role to help maintain a hygienic and clean environment.