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Songs are commonly used in educational public health programmes to facilitate the understanding of health messages. During the COVID-19 pandemic, national blood banks witnessed a pronounced reduction in blood donors. Thus, we created a song with the title ‘Keep the World Beating’ to raise awareness of the need for blood and to promote blood donation. To maximise participation, we carried out a live broadcast of the donation process and the music video on social media, increasing visibility and accessibility to the event. The number of donations increased in the month after the song was released. Songs can be used to strengthen current entertainment-education strategies promoting blood donation and to increase the level of awareness among the local population, thus motivating people to donate blood in a time of need.

BackgroundIn Malaysia, blood supply relies mainly on non-remunerated blood donors. This study aimed to assess the satisfaction and experience of blood donors during the blood donation process and their intention to return for donation in future.Materials and MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study conducting using a self-administered questionnaire among blood donors. Study was conducted in a tertiary referral hospital and two mobile sites in the Perak state of Malaysia. The questionnaire was initially developed in the Malay language with 5-point Likert scale. The questionnaire comprised of three domains: i) sociodemographic characteristics ii) donor’s satisfaction towards staff iii) donors’ experience and satisfaction towards the donation process. ResultOf the 400 questionnaires distributed, 369 (92.3%) were analysed. The mean age of the donors was 35.98±10.67 years. Most of the donors were male (75.1%), of Malay ethnicity (60.2%) and regular donors (65.6%). Majority of the blood donors reported high satisfaction towards the interviewer (99.0%), blood taking skill of the staff (97.5%), politeness and friendliness of the staff (99.5%) and communication with the staff (98.9%). Minority of the blood donors expressed dissatisfaction towards the parking spaces (13.4%), refreshment (0.8%), and the blood donation operation hours (0.8%). Generally, the respondents had high overall satisfaction level (99.2%) and high intention to donate blood again in the future (98.9%). Conclusion Blood donors in the current study were highly satisfied towards the staff and blood donation process. Translation of high intention to return for donation to actual donation behaviour require further exploration in future studies.

Objective: To develop and validate a questionnaire which evaluates the blood donors’ satisfaction. Background: In Malaysia, blood procurement relies mainly on voluntary non- remunerated donors. Hence, it is important to ensure the satisfaction of the blood donors in order to increase retention. Methods: This study was conducted among blood donors who attended blood donation and understood the Malay language. Non-Malaysian and illiterate donors were excluded. The questionnaire was developed by the transfusion medicine team. Content validity was established by content reviewers, while face validity was examined in the cognitive debriefing stage. For the 18- item questionnaire, 90 respondents were required based on the 1:5 ratio. A retest was performed in two weeks’ time. Results: One hundred and thirty-seven participants responded in the first phase, while 103 responded after two weeks. The five domains were: technical, interpersonal, accessibility/ convenience, physical experience and overall satisfaction. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.896, with significant Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (P < 0.001). The factor loadings ranged from 0.729 to 0.953. The Cronbach alpha values of the five domains ranged from 0.814 to 0.955 and the intraclass correlation coefficient ranged from 0.663 to 0.847. Conclusion: The Malaysian blood donor’s satisfaction (M-BDS) questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool suitable for the assessment of blood donor’s satisfaction in blood donation centres.