Shafaq Naeem^1,, Yaxuan Xie¹, Sadaf Naeem², Sumaira Mubarik³, Zhanpeng Yuan¹, Kejian Shi¹

Food-borne diseases, especially food poisoning, have become more common in recent decades, threatening the health and economic well-being of many people all over the globe. This research was intended to evaluate knowledge, attitude, and preventive practice of parents about food poisoning and the factors associated with it. By using a well-structured questionnaire, we conducted a cross-sectional study targeting mainly parents in the city of Lahore. A Chi-square test was performed to measure the effect of sociodemographic variables on these three attributes and binary logistic regression analysis to identify predictors of parents’ knowledge, attitude, and practice. Pearson correlation coefficient was also calculated. We observed good knowledge and attitude in 62.6% (241) and 60.8% (234) parents, respectively, but good preventive practice only in 42.1% (162) of parents. Regarding food poisoning knowledge, only age, education level and monthly income were significantly associated (p < 0.05) with it. On the other hand, all socio-demographic variables (age, gender, education level, number of children and monthly income) were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with both attitude and preventive practice. Besides, a significant positive correlation was observed between knowledge and attitude (r = 0.797, p = 0.001), knowledge and practice (r = 0.594, p = 0.002) and attitude and practice (r = 0.545, p < 0.001). The majority of the parents demonstrated good knowledge and attitude but poor preventive practices towards food poisoning. Parents who had good knowledge also exhibited a positive attitude and practice. Thus, we can improve parents’ attitudes and practices by improving food poisoning knowledge. Therefore, this study provides a baseline for health authorities to emphasize increasing parental knowledge and strategies to change parents' attitudes toward food poisoning while also polishing their good practices.

Food-borne diseases (FBDs), food poisoning, knowledge, attitude, practice, parents