Factors Influencing Food Safety Education Practices among Obstetricians

Healthcare providers (HCPs) are responsible for educating pregnant women about food safety issues in to prevent infectious diseases; however, few HCPs provide their pregnant women with such information. This study aimed to identify food safety education practices, attitudes and barriers among obstetricians and determine the factors affecting education practices. In this cross-sectional study, 238 obstetricians completed a self-administered questionnaire. Medians with interquartile ranges, frequency, crosstabs test, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruska-Wallis H test, Dunn-Bonferroni post hoc method, and multiple regression were used for data analysis. The study found that obstetricians provide pregnant women with a low amount of food safety information (2.5 ± 0.42, and the top three barriers reported were lack of time (Mdn = 3, IQR = 1), lack of knowledge (Mdn = 3, IQR = 2), and heavy workload (Mdn = 3, IQR = 2). Furthermore, only a few obstetricians were interested in taking food safety education courses (30.2%) and exploring pregnant women's education needs (39.5%). Factors influencing education practices were total experience, lack of knowledge, and lack of time. Obstetricians should be more aware of the need to educate pregnant women about food safety issues. Understanding the influencing factors determined in this study will contribute to the development of an effective education plan to reinforce doctors' food safety education competency.