Development of a safe food handling knowledge questionnaire: psychometric properties and acceptability among consumers
Abstract
Purpose Foodborne illness remains high globally, with the majority of cases occurring in the domestic environment. Research in the safe food-handling domain is limited by the absence of an up-to-date and suitable measure of safe food-handling knowledge for use among consumers, with previous measures limited by questionnaire design features that increase participant burden and burnout and a lack of alignment with current safe food-handling guidelines. The purpose of this study is to develop a safe food-handling knowledge measure to capture a comprehensive understanding of consumers’ safe food-handling knowledge while minimising participant burden and burnout. Design/methodology/approach Items were developed and evaluated prior to administering them to participants. Data was collected among 277 participants who completed the measure online. Findings Results indicated that the measure had good acceptability among participants in the sample (mean = 5.44, SD = 0.77, range = 2.42–7) and that the measure had acceptable reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.60), item discrimination and item difficulty. These findings suggest that the safe food-handling knowledge measure would be suitable for use in future studies examining consumer safe food-handling. Originality/value This study provides an updated, acceptable and suitable safe food-handling knowledge measure for use among consumers to better understand consumers’ understanding of safe food-handling practices. Use of this measure in future…
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The study's questionnaire selection was based on a review of existing literature on food safety at home and guidelines from global health organizations.
“The selection of the questions was based on a review of existing literature on the development of questionnaires to evaluate food safety at home [19–21] as well as guidelines provided by global health organizations [22,23].”
From Assessing food safety practices and foodborne illness risk factors in Brazilian households. (2025) · cites this paper as [21]
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Self-citationAssessing food safety practices and foodborne illness risk factors in Brazilian households.
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- Authors
- Charlesworth, J., Mullan, B., & Preece, D.
- Affiliations
- Curtin University (AU)
- Venue
- Nutrition & Food Science
- Publisher
- Emerald
- Published
- 2022-04-07
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-18
- ISSN
- 0034-6659 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4224115386
- Cited by
- 6
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 0.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Nutrition & Food Science (publishedVersion)
- UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Food Safety and Hygiene
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Salmonella and Campylobacter epidemiology
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Nutrition, Health and Food Behavior
- Keywords
- safe food handling, food safety knowledge, questionnaire development, psychometric properties, consumer acceptance, participant burden, food poisoning, food safety guidelines
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