Introduction: Foodborne illnesses, particularly in group settings such as military bases, represent a serious public health challenge. This study aimed to conduct a preliminary assessment of a specialized, realistic scenario-based educational workshop on participants' levels of knowledge, attitudes, and practice intentions concerning the investigation of foodborne disease outbreaks.
Materials and Methods: This quasi-experimental study performed a pre-test/post-test design involving 12 active professionals from the fields of medicine, veterinary medicine, nursing, and environmental health. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire developed based on guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), covering the three KAP domains. Statistical analysis was performed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test at a significance level of α = 0.05.
Results: Baseline knowledge was already high (mean = 7.6 out of 8). Moreover, there are not any statistically significant change following the intervention (p = 0.53). However, in the attitude domain, a positive trend emerged—particularly regarding systematic monitoring of refrigerator temperatures and the importance of thoroughly investigating non-hospitalized outbreak cases (the mean attitude score increased from 29.5 to 30.2). Regarding practice intentions, 83.3% of participants reported their intention to adopt standardized methods, such as defining precise case definitions and utilizing structured food consumption checklists during outbreak investigations.
Conclusion: In this small sample with high baseline knowledge; although there were not any significant differences, the positive patterns can be seen in attitude and behavioral intentions. Nevertheless, favorable descriptive patterns were observed in selected attitudinal indicators and behavioral intentions. This model shows potential as a complement to traditional training methods. It is recommended that the feasibility and effectiveness of this educational model can be further evaluated in larger samples, using objective behavioral outcomes and longitudinal follow-up assessments.