© 2023 PP House Cross-Sectional Survey of Sausage Consumers in Algeria: Prevalence and Risk Factors for Development of Food-Borne Illnesses and Antibiotic Use Behavior Amina Hachemi 1 , Nora Mimoune 2 , Said Boukhechem 3 , Safia Zenia 4 , Sara Zaidi 2 , Khatima Ait-Oudhia 1 and Djamel Khelef 2 Print ISSN 0976-3988 Online ISSN 0976-4038 Artcle AR3239 DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.23910/1.2023.3239 Research Article International Journal of Bio-resource and Stress Management 1 Laboratory of Food Hygiene and Quality Insurance System (HASAQ), 2 Dept. of clinics, Laboratory of Animal Health and Production, Higher National Veterinary School, Rue Issad Abbes, Oued Smar, Algiers (16000), Algeria 3 Dept. of animal production, Institute of Veterinary Science, University of Mentouri Constantine 1, PB 325, Constantine (25017), Algeria 4 Dept. of preclinics, Research Laboratory Management of Local Animal Resources (GRAAL), Higher National Veterinary School, Rue Issad Abbes, Oued Smar, Algiers (16000), Algeria RECEIVED on 23 rd August 2022 RECEIVED in revised form on 07 th January 2023 ACCEPTED in fnal form on 25 th January 2023 PUBLISHED on 16 th February 2023 IJBSM February 2023, 14(2):220-228 htps://pphouse.org/ijbsm.php Citaton (VANCOUVER): Hachemi et al., Cross-Sectional Survey of Sausage Consumers in Algeria: Prevalence and Risk Factors for Development of Food-Borne Illnesses and Antibiotic Use Behavior. International Journal of Bio-resource and Stress Management, 2023; 14(2), 220-228. HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.23910/1.2023.3239. Copyright: © 2023 Hachemi et al. Tis is an open access article that permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium after the author(s) and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Legal restrictions are imposed on the public sharing of raw data. However, authors have full right to transfer or share the data in raw form upon request subject to either meeting the conditions of the original consents and the original research study. Further, access of data needs to meet whether the user complies with the ethical and legal obligations as data controllers to allow for secondary use of the data outside of the original study. Confict of interests: Te authors have declared that no confict of interest exists. T his cross-sectional questionnaire study was designed to determine the prevalence of food-borne illnesses and potential risk factors among Algerian sausage consumers, and to assess antibiotics use behavior among sick consumers. From August, 2018 to June, 2019, a total of 800 structured questionnaires were distributed randomly to sausage consumers from ten (10) departments of Algiers, Algeria. The data collected were analyzed with different statistical approaches. The results showed that out of the 384 sausage consumers surveyed, 22.39% reported having food-borne illnesses after sausage consumption, with 8.14% of sick consumers hospitalized. The prevalence of foodborne illnesses among sausage consumers was significantly higher among males (25.69%) than females (21.09%) (OR=1.36), and also significantly higher (p<0.01) among consumers without children (24.54%) than among those who had children (17.12%). Sausage consumers who were immuno-deficient had the highest frequency of being sick, 41.38% (OR=3.62, p<0.0001), followed in descending order by consumers who had children, 34.85% (OR=1.9, p=0.01), and pregnant consumers, 28.12% (OR=1.56, p=0.03). For antibiotic use behavior, out of 86 sick consumers, 59.3% had self-medicated on antibiotics, and 17.44% had interrupted the antibiotics treatment. This study provides for the first-time information about baseline of the attitude and behavior regarding antibiotic use among Algerian sausage consumers who developed food-borne illness. Thus, it can be concluded that raw sausage must be consumed with precaution for vulnerable groups at risk. Public education programs should be developed to target misconceptions of antibiotics use and vulnerable groups at risk. ABSTRACT Antibiotics-use, consumers, foodborne, risk factors, sausages, Algeria KEYWORDS: Open Access n.mimoune@ensv.dz Corresponding 0000-0002-0900-3908 Stress Management 220