| Americans are eating more of their meals away from their residences, and poor personal hygiene causes more than 90% of the food safety problems in the foodservice industry. Research shows that simple handwashing takes care of most hygiene problems.;This was the first study to correlate student chefs' psychosocial factors with practices to see if predictions can be made about behavior. Surveys were administered to a convenience sample of 440 student chefs at a cooking school in New York City, and a subset of 100 of those students was observed.;The Expanded Theory of Planned Behavior was used as a framework for the psychosocial variables. Self-reported and observed food handling behaviors were based on guidelines from the FDA 2001 Food Code and NRA ServSafe program. Survey responses indicated that although 80% of the students passed their NRA exam, indicating that they had the knowledge to practice good personal hygiene, there was a disproportionate gap between knowledge and intended and actual food handling behaviors.;Multiple regression analyses indicated that behavioral intention was best predicted by beliefs (20.3%), responsibility (9.9%), perceived social pressure (2.7%), and self-perception (1.0%). Self-reported behavior was best predicted by behavioral intention (49.3°10), beliefs (3.4°10), and responsibility (1.3%). When intention was removed from the model, beliefs accounted for 23% variance followed by responsibility, social influence, and self-perception.;Rate of adherence to recommendations for practicing good personal hygiene for 1,398 handwashing indications was 25%. Observation and self-reported behaviors were significantly correlated with intention, social influence, and beliefs; however, there was a limited association between self-reported and actual behaviors.;Consistent patterns of multiple regression analyses for demographics in both behavioral and psychosocial variables showed females scoring higher than males, older students (≥24) higher than younger students, and work experience (>3 years) scoring highest. Hispanic students scored the highest; however, students reporting the lowest household income (<18,000) and highest education (bachelor's +) scored lowest.;The results indicated that knowledge is important but not sufficient to carry out safe food handling behaviors and emphasis must be placed on psychosocial factors to improve compliance to safe food handling practices. |
