Knowledge, readiness and barriers factors to support the single-use plastic reduction programme among Kelantan street food hawkers using a new Malay version questionnaire
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Date
2020
Authors
Abdullah, Nur Baizura Aini
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pusat Pengajian Sains Perubatan, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Background: Excessive usage of single-use plastic containers has imposed a serious
environmental pollutions and health problems to human. Food hawkers had been
contributing to this problem from high demand of ready-to-eat food and this need to
be controlled. There is a need to assess the knowledge, readiness and barriers to
support plastic reduction programme among street food hawkers.
Objectives: This study involved the development and validation of a new questionnaire
to assess knowledge, readiness and barriers of food hawkers to support single-use
plastic reduction programme in Kelantan. This was a 2-phase study with Phase 1
involved the development and validation of a questionnaire done from December 2019
till March 2020, while Phase 2 involved the assessment of knowledge, readiness and
barriers, their associated factors, and relationships between all these domains which
was done from March 2020 till April 2021.
Methodology: In Phase 1 study, the questionnaire was developed after thorough
literature review and experts’ opinions from experts and hawkers’ representatives.
Response process was done via cognitive debriefing and pretesting process. Item
Response Theory (IRT), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor
analysis (CFA) were done in psychometric evaluation of questionnaire. Internal
consistency of all the items was also conducted. A total of 660 food hawkers fromKota Bharu district involved in the validation study recruited through purposive
sampling. For Phase 2 study, a cross-sectional study was conducted involving 440 food
hawkers from five districts in Kelantan. Proportionate sampling was done to get the
sample size for each night market food hawkers. Level of knowledge, readiness and
barriers, their associated factors were measured using descriptive statistics and
multiple logistic regression. While Pearson correlation was used to find the
relationship, strength and directions of these three domains.
Results: The final version of SFH-RS tool consisted of 46 items (22 items on
knowledge, 15 items on readiness and 9 items from barriers). 2-PL IRT analyses
indicated good psychometric properties of items for discrimination index between 0.8-
2.5, and difficulty index between -3 to +3 was 86.7%. The marginal reliability value
was 0.77. In EFA analysis for readiness and barriers domains, all four factors showed
acceptable reliability with Cronbach alpha of more than 0.7. All items loaded with
factor loading of > 0.4 and item communality of more than 0.25 and factor correlations
were < 0.85 between all the factors. In CFA analysis, the final model consists of 24-
items under 4 factors. This newly developed tool demonstrated acceptable factor
loading with >0.5, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.906; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) =
0.916; and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.056 with
composite reliability of Rykov’s Rho value between 0.757 to 0. 887.
Majority (71.8%) of the respondents had good level of knowledge score, ready (60%)
to support plastic reduction program and consider barriers (73%) had low influence on
them. Age (aOR=0.952; 95% CI: 0.93,0.97; p-value <0.001), readiness to change
(aOR=3.271; 95% CI:2.046,5.230, p-value<0.001), and significant barriers
(aOR=3.577; 95% CI:2.204,5.805, p-value<0.001), were found to be associated withknowledge level. Meanwhile, male food hawkers (aOR=1.706, 95% CI: 1.124, 2.590,
p-value = 0.012), information source from social media (aOR=2.914, 95% CI: 1.852,
4.584, p-value <0.001) and official source of information (aOR=2.269, 95% CI: 1.343
3.835, p-value = 0.002) has been associated with readiness to support single-use plastic
reduction program. It was found that there was a significant and direct moderate
correlation between knowledge score and readiness score (r = 0.492, p-value < 0.001).
Besides that, barrier’s score has a strong indirect correlation with knowledge score (r
= -0.503), p-value < 0.001) and barriers and readiness score have a significant negative
moderate correlation (r = - 0.479, p-value < 0.001).
Conclusion: The SFH-RS is a reliable and valid tool used to assess knowledge and
readiness among food hawkers to support single-use plastic reduction programme.
Overall results in Phase 2 study showed good knowledge and readiness level, with
majority of food hawkers did not consider barriers as significant in changing their
action in supporting this programme. It also could identify significant factors to help
in future or activities in plastic reduction program.
Description
Keywords
Environment , Controlled