Food allergy knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) among restaurant's staff in Jordan: a cross-sectional study

PurposePeople with food allergies rely to a great extent on restaurant staff to have a safe meal. The purpose of this paper is to acquire novel data to evaluate knowledge, attitudes and practices of food allergy among the restaurant's staff and factors that could be associated with these domains.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional study involving 306 restaurant staff in Amman City, Jordan was conducted using a validated self-reported questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors independently associated with knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP).FindingsThe results showed that most restaurant staff had moderate to excellent knowledge, positive attitudes, low to moderate risk practices regarding food allergy. Knowledge level was significantly associated with the staff's age, position, education level and restaurant class. Further, attitude level was significantly associated with staff age, experience, gender, education level, restaurant class and whether the restaurant held food safety certificates. Similarly, staff behavioral practices were significantly associated with staff position, restaurant class and the presence of valid food safety certificates.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that more training for the staff in restaurants would be associated with a lower risk of providing unsafe meals.Originality/valueThis study demonstrated the need for the pre-employment theoretical and practical tests for restaurants’ staff to determine their knowledge level and provide them mandatory developing training programs to support and facilitate food allergy risk management and to develop food allergy policies.