Evaluation of transported food services provided in Gaziantep public hospitals

Begüm UĞURLU, Evaluation of Transported Food Services Provided in Gaziantep Public Hospitals, Hasan Kalyoncu University Institute of Health Sciences Nutrition and Dietetics MScThesis, Gaziantep, 2019. This study was carried out in January-May 2018 for the purpose of evaluating the the transported food service to 575 hospital staff at the four public hospitals in Gaziantep. Participants of the research were asked about their opinions on this sevice system as 5 point Likert scale including the options of very bad, bad, medium, good and very good. Questions were about demographic characteristics, waiting period in the cafeteria, frequency of eating out, dining room, service team and personnel hygiene, dining hall physical properties and subjective characteristics of meals, and answers were categorized using 5-point Likert Scale. According to the results of the survey; participants liked consistency of the food as 40.3%, display of the food as 36.0%, temperature of the food as 35.0%, meal cooked well as 34.0%, the smell of the food as 33.5%, capability of a healthy and nutritious diet as 33.0% and the quality of bread as 32.0% resulting in the liking of a medium range. Among the options considered very bad are the fat percentage of the food 35.0% and harmony of the food by 23.0%. The highest like is the food being sufficient and satisfactory by 31.0% resulting in the scale of good. As for the physical features of the dining hall, while the ventilation of the hall is assessed as very bad by 40.0%, the results indicate that the complaint about the food smell is the maximum 36.0%. While the individuals of institutes which give collective food service assessed the general hygiene of the dining hall (37.4%) and the hygiene of the cutlery and white ware (35.7%) in the scale of medium, they considered the hygiene of the personnel (43.0%) as good. Similarly, they considered the attitude and the behaviour of the personnel while serving the food (41.2%) as good. As a result, in the hospitals where the collective nutrition system of the food service is carried out, the satisfactory of the service manner is resulted at a medium scale with the result of total 38.0%. When the results collected from the hospitals where the research was carried out are analyzed, the fat percentage in the food is considered very bad in all of the hospitals whereas the food being sufficient and satisfactory resulted in being good and a significant difference was found (p≤0,05). In order to increase the satisfaction rate, the subjective characteristics of the dishes should be improved, the same quality food production should be given depending on the standard recipes and the remedial measures should be taken during the service to affect the food quality. Key words: bulk nutrition, food service, satisfaction, hospital, hygiene