Awareness of Blood Donation in General Population-The Cross-Sectional Analytical Study

Author(s):

Makade Jagadish, Patil Sachin, Deshpande Sanjay, Swarupa Chakole

Introduction: Blood donation is very vital to save human life as there is no substitute for human blood. Blood transfusion is an essential component of the health care system of every country and patientswho require blood transfusion service as part of the clinical management of their condition have the right to expect that sufficient and safe blood will be available to meet their needs. However, this is not always the case, especially in developing countries. To recruit and retain adequate regular voluntary non-remunerated blood donors the motivators and barriers of donors must be understood. Equally important to this goal is the knowledge of blood donors.

Method: This study was a cross-sectional study with purposive sampling, was done in the OPD patients of Shalinitai Meghe hospital and research center and Datta Meghe Medical college, Nagpur in collaboration with ABVRH, Sawangi (Meghe). After obtaining verbal consent, the data was collected by a pre-designed, pre-structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 26.

Result: A total of 323 People took part in the study, with an average age of 35.6±6.53. Out of the 323, 121(37.5%) were donors and 202(62.5%) were non-donors. The majority of the donors were between the ages of 31 and 40 years old (48.5%), males (63.1%), singles (40.4%), and graduates (45%). The majority of donors (69.4%), 48.8%, had donated 2-5 times, 24.8% were frequent donors, and 37.1%donated annually. “No request for blood” (63.4%)was the most common reason given by non-donors for not donating blood. Around 218(67.5%) said they would be willing to be voluntary donors in the future, whereas 72(22.3%) said they would only donate for family and friends, and 33(10.2%) said they would not donate blood. Age, education, source of information, and kind of donationblood were all found to have a major impact on willingness to donate.

Conclusion: Males and those with a higher education were the most likely to donate blood. Donors saw blood donation as a humanitarian cause, and they felt it provided them with more moral gratification than non-donors. Non-donors were more likely than donors to believe that blood donation causes weakness/anaemia and is damaging to their health.