A Multimethod Study on Kitchen Hygiene, Consumer Knowledge and Food Handling Practices at Home

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This research article provides information with regard to consumer behaviors that contribute to foodborne illness, and illustrates the need for continuing education focused on consumers. The information presented from the study is interesting and consistent with other published studies. However, the following needs to be corrected prior to publication.

1.) There are numerous grammatical errors, run-on sentences, and misuse of words which caused a lack of clarity in the article. The article should be reviewed by a native English speaker to help correct these issues and provide stronger clarity. Some of these issues are listed below but there are others that will need to be addressed throughout the article.

2.) Line-110 states that a swab was used on the whole surface "of cutlery and knife". Knives are cutlery so I am confused if you really meant to say "cutlery and knife" or if another area was swabbed.

3.) Table 2- states post-secondary education, but in the line below it says University education. Generally, post-secondary education has referred to as university education. Please define what is included or excluded from "post-secondary education"

4.) Table 3 is confusing as you often cannot tell from the table what was being studied. For example, it says "Hand drying method" which indicates various methods and not a specific method. Another example is "Hand washing time before preparing food?". The table in the data then shows there was a gender difference, but one cannot tell what the difference was.

The table needs to be re-written so that it is clear what the benchmark is and what the p-value is indicating. For example, did women do a better job or worse job of washing their hands? Define what leading group performance is. Is this a positive or negative attribute? What was determined to be proper hand washing? What were the questions that the consumer was asked? The entire section on "knowledge of microorganisms" is also confusing. The food safety performance of "Prevention of infections by food containing bacteria of the genus Salmonella" does not tell the reader what the consumers were asked and what the responses were. Please re-write the entire table for clarity. Also, please define "Food safety performance" as it is unknown what is meant by this. The table should be clear enough to stand alone without explanation.

5.) If a sentence starts with a percentage the percentage should be written out e.g. "Thirty percent of respondents..." not "30% of respondents...".

6.) Lines 223-225 discusses methods of cooling heat-treated dishes and method of reheating but these are not define/described. Please fix.

7.) There isn't any demographic data for the observational group so it is impossible to asses the data regarding these studies. Additionally, throughout the discussion of observational studies it is stated "younger" or "older" [persons] but there is no reference as to the ages or what defines these groups of people. There are references to men versus women but it is unknown how many of each participated in these studies. Please provide this data.

8.) Observational data should also be presented in a table. 

9.) Line 232 states that some consumers did not wash their hands correctly. It is unknown what the authors consider to be "correct hand washing". Please define this.

10.)Line 273 states "A majority (14) also did not wash poultry meat. It is unclear if the authors think this is good or bad. Also, is this 14 out of 16 observed? Please fix this and provide percentage data in addition to just participant numbers so it is clear how many people were observed for the behavior and what percentage engaged in positive or negative behaviors. Please do this for the entire observational section data. Again, please clarify how "older" and "younger" are defined. 

11.) Line 293 discusses TCC levels but it is unknown what the detection limit is for your assay. Please state the detection limits for each microbiological experiment.

12.) RLU is not defined. Please define.

13.) Figure 1 again uses the terms "older" and "younger" but never defines what these are. Please explicitly state the age ranges.

14.) It is unclear why the dishwasher walls were studied. There are generally no consumer guidelines for cleaning and sanitizing a home dishwasher. Please explain the reasoning behind this part of the study. Additionally, line 343 states samples were taken from "(rubber pad on the philtre"). Do you mean filter? Please correct.

15.) Lines 372-373 The sentence is unclear and needs to be re-worded, I was unable to understand what was being stated.

16.) Line 383-384 states "Unhygienic conditions in food handling at home on the other side ranked as lowest." I do not know what "other side" means nor do I understand the context of this sentence. Please re-write for clarity.

17.) Line 446-450 is a run-on sentence and needs to be fixed.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

The authors wish to thank the reviewer 1 for his/her valuable time to comment on the manuscript in such a constructive way.

Regarding comments raised after our submission, please find below list of changes made. Our changes are also visible in the revised version of the manuscript. Text that was changed or added is visible in red colour.

Kind regards,

Mojca Jevšnik

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The study by Jevšnik et al deals with a very relevant topic to public health and food safety and hygiene at the last step of the food chain, the final consumer.

Overall, the manuscript is well written and the applied materials and methods as well as the obtained results are well presented.

Only minor revisions are needed in order the manuscript to be published according to the following comments:

 

Past tense (not present tense) should be appropriately used throughout the manuscript when reporting and discussing results.

Line 57 – Add a full stop at the end of the sentence.

Line 74 – ‘was used’ instead of ‘were used’

Line 87 – ‘A Testo 106 food thermometer’ instead of ‘Testo 106 food thermometer’.

Lines 102-103 – Rephrase ‘With each consumer, one sample was taken on….’ to ‘One sample per consumer was taken from…’

Line 106 – Rephrase ‘cleanliness of the surface samples taken’ to ‘cleanliness of surface samples’.

Line 117 – Rephrase ‘was started in November 2018 and completed’ to ‘started in November 2018 and was completed’.

Line 195 -196– A sentence cannot begin with an Arabic number – 30% and 51% must be written in full at this point. Revise accordingly all such Arabic number percentages in the text.

Line 230 – Arabic numbers 1-9 should be written in full in the text in scientific manuscripts. Revise accordingly all such Arabic numbers in the text.

Line 340 – Rephrase ‘inadequate clean’ to ‘inadequately clean’

Lines 445-446 – Rephrase ‘The studies of American [19] and Belgian consumers [1] gave the authors similar results’ to ‘Studies in American [19] and Belgian consumers [1] yielded similar results’.

Line 448 – Add a full stop after the citation and begin a new sentence ‘In our study ….’.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer!

The authors wish to thank the reviewer 1 for his/her valuable time to comment on the manuscript in such a constructive way.

Regarding comments raised after our submission, please find in attachment list of changes made. Our changes are also visible in the revised version of the manuscript. Text that was changed or added is visible in red colour.

Kind regards,

Mojca Jevšnik 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I appreciate the authors incorporating the suggestions to improve the clarity of the manuscript.