Food safety knowledge and practices among elderly in Slovenia

The results of qualitative and quantitative research of food safety knowledge and practices among the elderly in Slovenia are presented and discussed. Data were collected via observation and anonymous questionnaires. The study was conducted in 2009 with 100 elderly people, who were attending training for maintaining their balance at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia at the time of the investigation. The aim of the study was to investigate the food safety knowledge and practices of the elderly in urban and rural environments. For this study, an observation sheet and a questionnaire were designed. Observations about good hygiene practice at home were performed with six elderly people living in the city and ten living in villages. During observation, ten different surfaces in the homes of six volunteers in town were swabbed and examined for microbiological quality. Fifty randomly selected elderly people living in town and the same number living in villages were included in the questionnaire. The results gained via the observations and the questionnaire show a certain amount of inappropriateness during food preparation processes between groups, especially in terms of poor hygiene, incorrect sequences of food preparation, incorrect temperature and distribution of food in the refrigerator. The results show that most working surfaces and kitchen tools are contaminated with non-pathogenic and potentially pathogenic microorganisms. The hands of the volunteers are the most contaminated by microorganisms among all selected surfaces, followed by kitchen counters and chopping boards. The elderly are not sufficiently aware of how important their role in the food supply chain is. Their behaviour is not always in accordance with good hygiene practice and may lead to food-borne diseases at home.