Magnitude of hygienic practices and its associated factors of food handlers working in selected food and drinking establishments in Mekelle town, northern Ethiopia

Food service establishments are the sources of food borne illnesses and the food handlers contribute to food borne illness outbreaks. Purpose of this study was to assess the magnitude of hygienic practices and its associated factors on food handlers working in selected food and drinking establishment found in Mekelle town, northern Ethiopia. A facility based crosssectional study was conducted from January-February 2014 among the 369 food handlers. A simple random sampling method was applied for data collection using a pre-tested structured questionnaire. The data entry, cleaning and analysis were performed using SPSS version 20. Bi-variable and multivariable analysis was carried out to see the association between dependant variables and independent variables. The mean age of food handlers was 22.7±6.36 years. Magnitude of hygienic practices of food handlers were 53.1%. Food handlers have an access to running water inside the kitchen [AOR=2.89, 95%CI: 1.43-5.87] and have cupboard for storing food utensils [AOR=3.81, 95%CI: 1.88-7.73] were strongly associated with good hygienic practices. This study identify variables like access to running water, availability of cupboard in the establishment and an owner and relative being a manager was main predictors. The study recommends food handlers need special attention on food safety training, medical checkup and personal hygiene that can increase food hygienic practices. It also recommends that to commence the small-scale enterprise to work on social market in terms of training centers on food safety.