Effects of health educational and participatory consumer group interventions in improving food handling practices in regional director of health services area Kalutara, Sri Lanka: non-randomized controlled community trial

Table 7 Comparison of combined and individual categories’ inspection scores at the beginning of the study in three study groups and combined and individual categories’ inspection score before and after the interventions for the total study samples

Inspection score in three study groups at beginning of the intervention	Educational package	Participatory consumer	Control	Independent samples Kruskal – Wallis test value* P value
	Mean Rank	Mean Rank	Mean Rank	Independent samples Kruskal – Wallis test value* P value
Combined inspection score in Food establishments and food handlers	64.92	77.46	84.12	5.035 p = 0.081
Inspection score of food establishments only	66.98	78.00	81.52	3.049 p = 0.218
Inspection score of food handlers only	62.88	80.05	83.57	6.493 p = 0.353
Combined inspection score*	Number	Median	Quartile
			Q1	Q3
Before the intervention	150	3.170	2.726	3.686
After the intervention	150	3.378	2.774	3.878
Inspection score in food establishments only*		Median	Quartile
			Q1	Q3
Before the intervention	150	3.294	2.612	3.907
After the intervention	150	3.500	3.009	4.146
Inspection score among food handlers only*		Median	Quartile
			Q1	Q3
Before the intervention	333	3.192	2.600	3.608
After the intervention	333	3.325	2.721	3.595

^*Non parametric test
^*Inspection score was calculated for food establishments (150) and food handlers (333) separately, then calculated for both as combined score. Final marks were allocated out of 5

ISSN: 1471-2458