Extending the KAP framework: Food safety knowledge, attitudes, practices, and pathogen awareness among hotel service personnel

Foodborne illnesses are a serious public health issue affecting millions of people worldwide every year. This problem is largely rooted in a lack of knowledge regarding food safety and errors made in practice. Frequency analyses, Pearson correlation, one-way ANOVA, regression, and mediation analyses were employed to examine relationships among food safety knowledge, attitudes, practices, training status, and pathogenic microorganism knowledge. Results indicated that food safety training was associated with significant differences across all measured variables. While food safety knowledge significantly predicted both attitudes and practices, attitudes did not significantly predict practices and did not mediate the knowledge–practice relationship. Pathogenic microorganism knowledge was also found to positively and significantly influence food safety practices. These findings highlight the importance of both general food safety knowledge and microbiological awareness in promoting safe food handling behaviours and suggest that comprehensive theoretical and practical training programmes are essential for hotel food and beverage personnel.