RESUMO
Food borne diseases are associated with preparation of food under unhygienic conditions or prepared and kept for several hours at ambient temperatures before it is served and left overnight without refrigeration and served the following day. Hence, this work aimed at improving knowledge and practice of food services staff regarding provision of safe food for hospitalized patients in Gharbia governorate through a health education intervention program. All food services staff working in Tanta University hospitals [n=25] and Health Insurance Hospitals [n=127] were the target of the study. They answered a queonnaire sheet that included personal data and knowledge and practices of the food services staff regarding food safety at the start of the study [pre-intervention] and at the end of a health education intervention program [Postintervention]. A health education intervention program was applied for food services staff categorized as having low [40-59%] or very low score [<40%]. It had been applied in 5 sessions in the form of large group discussion. This program was conducted over a period of two and halt months, one session weekly. Food services staff with low and very low score regarding knowledge on food safety was 22.37% and 17.10 respectively. Concerning Practice of food safety, 20.39% of staff had low score and 18.42% had very low score. Age, sex, years of work, place of work and job title had no statistical significant association concerning knowledge and practice of food safety measures. There was statistically significant improvement of knowledge and practice of food services staff up to six months after health education intervention program at 5% level of significance. The percent of improvement ranged from about 32-95% for knowledge and 39-72% for practice. Findings highlighted the importance of providing health education in food and personal hygiene to food services staff and incorporating the same in existing guidelines for food establishments laid down by civic agencies in Tanta and elsewhere