Slovenian consumer food safety study : knowledge, attitudes, and practices from washing hands to cleaning in the kitchen based on questionnaire analysi

Bensa, Maja (author), Jevšnik Podlesnik, Mojca (author), Pezo, Lato (author), Vovk, Irena (author)

Consumer food safety is important as many foodborne outbreaks in Europe occur in homes. This article, part of Consumer Food Safety Study in Slovenia, reports results on the topics of (1) food safety information, education, and experience, (2) washing hands and cleaning the kitchen, and (3) pets, based on a validated online questionnaire completed by 1,621 adults. The aim was to investigate (1) levels of knowledge, attitudes, and practices using descriptive statistics, and (2) effects among knowledge, attitudes, and practices using structural equation modeling. Levels of participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices were generally good, although handwashing and pet-related hygiene could be improved. Most effects among knowledge, attitudes, and practices were confirmed. Participants learned from various food safety information sources, wanted to get more food safety information from food labels, were unsatisfied with some food labels characteristics, and had diverse food safety concerns. Food safety responsibility was most often attributed to the food processing industry and least often attributed to consumers. A developed Matrix of Consumer Food Safety (MCFS) was used to design the questionnaire. Future studies could use MCFS in designing and evaluating cross-regional research, longitudinal research, and food safety interventions aiming to improve consumer food safety culture.

• Language: English
• Keywords: food safety knowledge, attitudes and practices, food labels, hand hygiene, household cleaning, structural equation modeling
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: ZF - Faculty of Health Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 30-65
• Numbering: Vol. 18, no. 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-184429
• UDC: 614.31
• ISSN on article: 1757-837X
• DOI: 10.15586/qas.v18i3.1633
• COBISS.SI-ID: 283874819
• Publication date in RUL: 07.07.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Quality assurance and safety of crops & foods
• Shortened title: Qual. assur. saf. crop. foods
• Publisher: Codon Publications
• ISSN: 1757-837X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 520136217

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• License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• Description: A Creative Commons license that bans commercial use and requires the user to release any modified works under this license.