da Cunha Diogo Thimoteo, Braga Anna Rafaela Cavalcante, Passos Estevão de Camargo, Stedefeldt Elke, de Rosso Veridiana Vera
GeQual - Grupo de Estudo em Qualidade de Alimentos, Faculdade de Ciências Aplicadas, UNICAMP - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Pedro Zacarias Street, 1300 Limeira, SP, Brazil.
GeQual - Grupo de Estudo em Qualidade de Alimentos, Departamento de Biociências, UNIFESP - Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Silva Jardim Street, 136, Vila Mathias, 11015-020 Santos city, SP, Brazil.
Food Res Int. 2015 Sep;75:27-33. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2015.05.035. Epub 2015 May 16.
A positive outlook regarding future events, in which individuals find themselves less likely than others to experience negative events, is called optimistic bias (OB). The aims of this study were: 1. To ascertain the existence and measure the OB phenomenon in food handlers in relation to foodborne disease and 2. To examine the association of OB with food handlers' risk perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, self-reported practices, training participation, food safety performance of the establishments and microbiological analysis. This study examined different food businesses in Santos city, in Brazil, as follows: street food kiosks, beach kiosks, restaurants, hospitals, and school meal services. The food handlers indicated their own risk and their peers' risk of causing a foodborne disease. Responses were given on a 10cm linear scale anchored with descriptors of intensity ranging from "none" to "very high". The difference between these risk perceptions characterized a score of tendency of an OB. A structured questionnaire was administered to evaluate knowledge, attitudes, self-reported practices and food safety performance. A total of 183 food handlers participated in the study. Microbiological analyses were conducted with ready-to-eat foods/preparations from selected sites. The food handlers perceived themselves as less likely than their peers to cause a foodborne disease (p<0.001), demonstrating the tendency of an OB. Food handlers who had undergone some training presented lower scores for the perceived risk of themselves being responsible for a foodborne disease and higher knowledge than did untrained individuals. Hospitals, schools and restaurants performed better than street food group considering food safety performance. However, microorganisms were found in food samples from hospitals. This result may be motivated by OB and other subjective factors. Apparently, this positive outlook of food handlers is associated with training participation, lethality perception and correlating positively with age. No association was found between OB scores and knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices. Since OB may lead individuals to adopt inappropriate or dangerous behavior, strategies for debiasing food handlers should be designed.
对未来事件持积极看法，即个体认为自己比他人更不容易经历负面事件，这被称为乐观偏差（OB）。本研究的目的是：1. 确定食品从业人员中与食源性疾病相关的乐观偏差现象的存在并进行测量；2. 研究乐观偏差与食品从业人员的风险认知、知识、态度、自我报告的行为、培训参与情况、经营场所的食品安全表现以及微生物分析之间的关联。本研究调查了巴西桑托斯市的不同食品企业，具体如下：街头食品亭、海滩食品亭、餐馆、医院和学校餐饮服务。食品从业人员指出了自己以及同行引发食源性疾病的风险。回答是在一条10厘米的线性量表上给出的，两端分别用从“无”到“非常高”的强度描述词标注。这些风险认知之间的差异构成了乐观偏差倾向得分。通过一份结构化问卷来评估知识、态度、自我报告的行为和食品安全表现。共有183名食品从业人员参与了该研究。对选定场所的即食食品/制剂进行了微生物分析。食品从业人员认为自己比同行更不容易引发食源性疾病（p<0.001），这表明存在乐观偏差倾向。接受过一些培训的食品从业人员在认为自己对食源性疾病负有责任的风险认知方面得分较低，且比未受过培训的人员知识更丰富。在食品安全表现方面，医院、学校和餐馆的表现优于街头食品组。然而，在医院的食品样本中发现了微生物。这一结果可能是由乐观偏差和其他主观因素导致的。显然，食品从业人员的这种积极看法与培训参与情况、致死率认知相关，且与年龄呈正相关。未发现乐观偏差得分与知识、态度和自我报告的行为之间存在关联。由于乐观偏差可能导致个体采取不适当或危险的行为，因此应设计消除食品从业人员偏差的策略。
