Voluntary Blood Donation: Perception and Practices among Adult Population of a Semi-Urban Area of Udaipur, India
Abstract
There is a need to strengthen blood donor management in order to reduce the demand supply gap. Efforts are needed in this direction at all levels including educating and motivating more individuals to be involved in voluntary blood donation and converting them to retention donors. In order to develop rational and evidence based systems to be address blood shortage, it is needed to assess the current donor services and improve them to encourage more future donations. The present study explores the perceptions and practices of adults in a semi-urban area of Udaipur regarding blood donation and trying to identify the factors associated therewith. This cross sectional study was conducted on 3087 adult participants of semi urban areas of Udaipur from June 16, 2016 to August 15, 2016. It was observed that 91.2% of the participants were aware that blood donation is important for saving lives and 78.7% had a favorable attitude towards blood donation. However, in practice, less than 20% had ever donated blood. On further analysis educational level had found to have a significant effect on the knowledge regarding blood donation with p-value<0.00. So it can be concluded from this study that although the awareness about blood donation is quite high but very few people have actually donated blood voluntarily. Motivational interactive sessions at the community level are needed to allay the fears and misconceptions related to blood donation.
Keywords
Download Options
Introduction
Blood is a complex fluid which has no substitute. Therefore, blood donation by human will continue to be the only source for blood and blood components. One unit of blood is converted into packed cell volume, fresh frozen plasma, platelet concentrate, cryoprecipitate and granulocytes concentrate. 1 Thus a single unit of blood can benefit several patients. The need for blood transfusion may arise at any time in both urban and rural area. The unavailability of blood has led to deaths and many patients suffering from ill health. In high-income countries, the most frequently transfused group is elderly patients for supportive care in surgery, trauma and malignancies. In low- and middle income countries majority of transfusions are for children to manage severe childhood anaemia and for pregnancy-related complications. 2 The collection of blood from voluntary, non remunerated donors from low risk populations is an important measure for ensuring the safety, availability, quality and accessibility of blood transfusion. 3 Around 112.5 million blood donations are collected globally every year. 4
Conclusion
This study emphasize that merely knowledge and awareness are not enough to motivate people for donating blood. Even though most of the people realized the importance of blood donation as a life saving measure, still the rate of voluntary blood donation is very low. More interactive sessions to motivate people and allay their fears of needle prick and loss of blood need to be undertaken at the community level so that the target for 100% voluntary blood donation can be achieved.