Knowledge, Attitude, Practice and Factors Associated with Voluntary Blood Donations

Abstract

Voluntary donation of blood being a common lifesaving practice all over the world helps in the attainment of the needs required to overcome the growing demands. Blood donated voluntarily plays a greater role in saving lives of people who lose large volumes of blood due to serious accidents, obstetric and gynecological hemorrhages, surgery as well as for people with symptomatic anemia due to medical, hematologic conditions or cancers. Thus, blood is a vital concern to our population. Its use can be complicated by infectious and immunological conditions of which some could be life-threatening.

Problem statement: The World Health Organization (WHO) approximates that blood donation by 1% of the total population is generally the minimum required to attain a nation’s most basic blood requirements. As most of the population is eligible for blood donation, abundant availability of blood is possible and expected. Yet, a permanent shortage of blood remains because only a small proportion of eligible people donate in developed and even fewer in developing countries. Despite of the fact that the need for safe blood is increasing at global level, only 1% donation rate is reported in 82 countries. The WHO recommends that countries should aim at securing 100% blood donation from young people and on non-remunerated voluntary basis.

Rationale: Healthy and physically fit young students are potential sources for safe and high-quality blood. In order to target this population, it is important to evaluate their knowledge and attitude towards blood donation. Medical students are being in the field of health care and supposed to be more aware about the role of blood in saving life of patients than non-medical students, but does this hypothesis make them differ in their knowledge and attitude toward voluntary blood donation. There are no published studies about the level of knowledge and factors affecting knowledge and attitude towards blood donation among university students in St. Joseph College of health Sciences in Boko.

Objective

To assess level of knowledge, attitude, practice and factors associated with voluntary blood transfusion among students of St. Joseph College of Health Sciences in Boko, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania January 2019: Methodology: The study design will be descriptive cross-sectional study of quantitative approach recruiting 143 students from St. Joseph College of Health and the primary data will be collected by a well-structured questionnaire and analyzed by using Epi Info 7.

Background

According to one estimate, approximately 112.5 million units of blood are donated each year globally, of which only 42% is collected in developing countries accounting for 80% of world’s population. According to WHO, a country could meet its requirements if only up to 3% of that country’s population donate blood. It is quite unfortunate that less than 1% of population donate blood in about 73 countries, and out of these 70 are either developing or transitional countries (Fauzia Haji Mohammad et al, 2011) Blood is scarce, its demand far outweighs the supply. There is scarcity of active blood donors to meet the increased demands of blood. Also due to limited supply, safety especially with respects to the risk of transmissible infection is also of great concern especially in the developing countries (Dnyanesh Limaye et al, 2018). In recent years blood transfusion practices in India have gained special significance and forms an important role in the national healthcare system since it saves millions of lives annually, allows complex medical and surgical interventions, improves life expectancy and quality of life in variety of acute and chronic conditions (Dnyanesh Limaye et al, 2018).

In 2014 a study was conducted among the East African countries and reported that; Uganda had the highest blood collection units per a population of 1000 people followed by Kenya and Tanzania despite of the fact that Tanzania had the highest population base among the three countries. Despite of the variations, the overall rate of collection remained below the WHO minimum target of 10units per a population of 1,000 people annually. (Elionora Elias et al, 2016)

In Tanzania approximately more than 80% are voluntary non-remunerated blood donors and majority are from secondary schools. A study on blood donors revealed that the majority were aged between 24 and 35years whereby more than three-quarters were male and in secondary education which may imply that the majority may have donated while attending secondary school (Elionora Eliaset et al, 2016). Nevertheless, it has been stated that college and university students can play as a very potential source of quality and quick accessibility of blood, only if they are given knowledge, motivated and recruited well.

Problem Statement

Safe blood transfusion is an important component in improving health care and prevention of the spread of infectious diseases worldwide. Each year, millions of lives are saved through blood transfusion, yet the quality and safety of blood transfusion are still the interest especially in the developing countries (Amatya M et al, 2013) The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that blood donation by 1% of the total population is generally the minimum needed to meet a nation’s most basic blood requirements. As most of the population is eligible for blood donation, abundant availability of blood is possible and expected. Yet, a permanent shortage of blood remains because only a small proportion of eligible people donate in developed and even fewer in developing countries. Despite of the fact that the need for safe blood is increasing at global level, only 1% donation rate is reported in 82 countries. The WHO recommends that countries should aim at securing 100% blood donation from young people and on non-remunerated voluntary basis (WHO 2010).

Justification

Young people are the most probable blood donors in every society and students compose a large portion of them. Increase in the level of awareness and positive attitude towards blood donation is the highest priority of all blood transfusion centers. The initial step for achieving this goal is to perform comprehensive studies measuring the current situation of awareness, knowledge, beliefs, and attitude of the population towards blood donation (Jasim N. Al-Asadi et al, 2018).

Young, healthy and physically fit young students are potential sources for safe and high-quality blood. In order to target this population, it is important to evaluate their knowledge and attitude towards blood donation. Medical students are being in the field of health care and supposed to be more aware about the role of blood in saving life of patients than non-medical students, but does this hypothesis make them differ in their knowledge and attitude toward voluntary blood donation. There are no published studies about the level of knowledge and factors affecting knowledge and attitude towards blood donation among university students in St. Joseph College of health Sciences in Boko, but one has been done in Kilimanjaro in recruited students from KCMUCo, MWUCE, SMMUCO, and MUCO. To fill this gap in information, this study was done to explore the knowledge, attitudes, practices and factors towards blood donation among St. Joseph College of Health students.

Literature Review

Voluntary blood donation is a common practice all over the world which helps to attain the need for the growing demands. Blood donated voluntarily plays a greater role in saving lives of people who lose large volumes of blood due to serious accidents, obstetric and gynecological hemorrhages, surgery as well as for people with symptomatic anemia due to medical, hematologic conditions or cancers. Thus, blood is a vital concern to our population. Its use can be complicated by infectious and immunological conditions of which some could be life-threatening. (Samira AW et al, 2018)

Blood donation is one of the most significant contributions that a person can make towards the society. Blood transfusion has been recognized as one of the eight key lifesaving intervention in health care facilities. Blood supplies are facing inadequacy of blood worldwide. The demand keeps rising day by day, and currently blood donation is insufficient to meet the demand.

Availability of safe blood is a vital component of effective health-care and voluntary donors are the basic sources. It has been reported that lack of adequate information, fear, facilities, convenience and the lack of quality service are the most common factors in people's decision on whether to voluntarily donate blood repeatedly or not (Dr. Kajal Khajuria et al, 2017).

Knowledge about Voluntary Blood Donation

According to report in a study conducted in 2016, 85.3% knew someone who had ever donated blood and 64% were aware of their blood groups, respectively. About 37% of all the participants knew the amount of blood which could be donated at one setting of blood donation. Among those who had donated blood, almost half of them 49.6% had knowledge on the amount that could be donated. Other variables such as seen or heard advert on blood donation, suitable age and weight, knowing of the frequency of donation a person can make per year, and screening transfusion transmissible infections before transfusion were not significantly associated with donation practices (Elionora Elias et al, 2016)

Attitude toward Voluntary Blood Donation

In Kilimanjaro on voluntary blood donation there were positive attitudes of 94.7% of the university students who participated in the study. Of the 42. 89.3% were willing to voluntarily donate blood to anyone, 94.5% were willing to donate for a relative in need of blood, and 81.4% did not expect reward for blood donation. Willing to donate without knowing the religion of the recipient, suggestion on the voluntary donation to be the best form of blood donation and considering blood donation as a noble act were not significantly associated with donation practice (Elionora Elias et al, 2016).

Practice toward Voluntary Blood Donation

Research done at Samara University, Ethiopia reported that; only less than one quarter have ever donated blood and the remaining have never donated blood. More than 57.8% of donors had donated blood once in their life time. However, only 19.31% reported to be regular donors. Concerning reasons for non-donating Among those who participated 69.6% did not donate blood due to medical reasons, 62.2% due lack of information whereby 56.9% do not donate blood due to fear of weakness. These were the main factors for not donating blood. (Woldemichael Tadesse, 2018)

Factors Affecting Voluntary Blood Donation

As reported by the research conducted at Samara University, Ethiopia. It was revealed that the practice varies depending on departments. Nurses were 1.9 times more likely to practice VBD than clinical officers. Also, in case of beliefs, Muslims were less likely to practice than Christians (Woldemichael Tadesse, 2018)