Assessing Acceptability of Short Message Service Based Interventions towards Becoming Future Voluntary Blood Donors

Abstract

All blood bank services, especially those of developing countries, face a major shortfall of blood donations due to lack of voluntary blood donors. Our study aims to evaluate the acceptability of Short Message Service based interventions towards becoming voluntary blood donors among medical university students of Karachi, Pakistan. Methods. A total of 350 medical students were approached in medical universities of Karachi, Pakistan, using a nonprobability convenient sampling technique. Data collectors administered a self-made questionnaire to each participant using an interview based format. All data was recorded and analyzed on SPSS 16. Results. 350 participants, having a mean age of 21.47 ± 1.36, were included in our study with 30.6% (107/350) being males and 69.4% (243/350) being females. 93.4% (327/350) of participants agreed that donating blood was healthy, but only 26% had donated blood in the past with 79.1% donating voluntarily. 65.7% (230/350) of the participants agreed to take part in Short Message Service based behavioral interventions to become voluntary blood donors with 69.7% (244/350) also agreeing that Short Message Service reminders will promote them to donate blood more often. Conclusion. With university students willing to become voluntary blood donors, Pakistani blood banks can carry out Short Message Service based interventions to encourage them to donate blood.

Effective methods for reactivating inactive blood donors: a stratified randomised controlled study

“…The most common and accessible reminders for promoting the return of blood donors include telephone calls, cell phone short message service (SMS) messages, mailings, and e-mails, which may help to support the intrinsic motivations of donors, thereby increasing their commitment to donation [10]. Aside from its wide availability, low cost, and convenience, SMS messaging has been proven to be an effective intervention for a variety of health behaviours [11,12], including blood donation [13,14]. Upon receiving SMS message, donors may recall positive feelings from previous blood donations, thus increasing their desire to repeat the experience [11].…”

Can inactive blood donors be re‐recruited? A stratified randomised pilot study

“…In China, it costs approximately US$13 to call 100 people with 5 min each; whereas it costs only U$0.75 to send SMS to 100 people within 1 s. Thus, from the cost‐effective perspective, SMS is clearly cheaper and faster compared to phone calls. There are studies suggesting that SMS is an effective way of recruiting blood donors, especially in urgent need of donation (Xu et al ., ; Saleem et al ., ; Bruhin et al ., ; Sun et al ., ). Consistent with this notion, we found that SMS has a higher successful receiving rate compared to the response rate of telephone call ( P < 0.001).…”

Blood Drive Day-related Factors Affecting University Student Blood Donation in Grenada, West Indies: A Case-control Study

“…Frequently cited reasons for non-donation are medical (including safety) concerns (4,7,12,(14)(15)(16)18), fear (4,7,9,10,15,16,(18)(19)(20), and a lack of time (4,9,15,16). Notwithstanding this research, questions remain as to the specific reasons why students may or may not donate blood at any given blood drive and why there is a substantial difference between the percentage who view blood donation positively and those who actually donate (4,9,15,(21)(22)(23). It is likely that transient factors occurring in close temporal proximity to a blood drive play a major role in determining whether or not donation occurs.…”