Evaluating the effectiveness of two behaviour change techniques designed to optimise safe food-handling among consumers

All participants were recruited online in Australia. Participants clicked a link to the survey via advertising materials placed online. The link directed participants to an online survey which assessed baseline measures immediately prior to the intervention, with these baseline measures again administered two weeks later. All measures and intervention materials were administered via an online survey. The first survey containing the intervention was anticipated to take approximately 30 minutes to complete, and the second follow-up survey was anticipated to take 15 minutes to complete. As part of the intervention, participants first watched two informational food safety videos from the 'Play it Food Safe' campaign from the Western Australian Department of Health. One video was on safe cooking behaviour (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKy_eto2f-4) and one video was on safe chilling behaviour (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-HlZOOWjFI). After watching both videos, participants were then randomly allocated (by the survey software, Qualtrics) to one of two conditions to determine which may change four target safe food handling behaviours, which were: (1) reheating food until it is steaming hot, (2) cooking eggs until the yolks and whites are firm, (3) using a cooler bag when shopping for groceries, (4) freezing and/or refrigerating perishable foods as soon as possible after purchasing. The first intervention condition was the 'risk intervention group' where participants completed an anticipated regret task. In this task, participants had to write anticipated regret statements by indicating the consequence of not performing four target behaviours. Participants were provided with the start of the statement to then complete for each target behaviour (e.g., "If I do not reheat food until it is steaming hot...". Participants indicated an anticipated regret statement for each of the four target behaviours listed above. The second intervention condition was the 'habit intervention group' who were required to formulate an implementation intention. This involved developing 'If, then' plans for each behaviour. Participants were provided with an example not relevant to food safety or the target behaviours, instead relevant to reducing sugary drink consumption (i.e., "“If I go out for lunch with friends, then I will drink water instead of soft drink.”). Participants formulated an 'if, then' plan for each target behaviour, and were provided with tips or prompts to help them think of the plan for each behaviour (e.g., for reheating food until it is steaming hot "Tip: Think about where you reheat food the most, for example, at work or home?"). To ensure the measures and interventions were completed, data was checked in the survey software (Qualtrics) for completion rates.