Blood donor app usage behaviour and perceptions: Considerations for a blood donation app

Abstract

Background: South Africa often experiences critically low blood stock levels, making it vulnerable to blood shortages for everyday use and during times of crisis. There are over 3.5 billion smartphone users worldwide and, during 2019, app downloads were estimated at 204 billion. Considering that at least 51% of South Africans own a smartphone that can access the Internet and apps, it is clear that blood donation organisations in South Africa could benefit from engaging with the public through a mobile app.Objectives: This article aimed to determine whether South African blood donors’ app usage behaviour and perceptions were conducive to introduce a blood donation app, and what these behaviours and perceptions could reveal, to support South African Blood Donation Organisations in their recruitment and engagement endeavours.Method: The research problem discussed in this article sought to highlight the app usage behaviour of blood donors, and their perceptions about a proposed blood donation app. Forming part of a larger sequential mixed-methods study, the data presented in this article were gathered through a quantitative online questionnaire involving2154 South Africans respondents.Results: The findings revealed that the majority of respondents owned a smart device and that they used apps falling within the ‘Communication’ category. Of the respondents, 41% believed that a blood donation app will encourage younger South Africans to donate blood more regularly, whilst 25% of respondents were of the opinion that an app will motivate all South Africans to donate blood more often.Conclusion: The value of this research lies in the insight gained into the behaviour and perceptions of South African blood donors, which can inform the conceptualisation and design of a blood donation app, thereby improving its efficacy and subsequently supporting the strategy of employing such a technology to increase blood donation.

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“…The growth of users is constant and sustainable and continues into 2022 which clearly differentiates it from COVID pandemic effects [14]. The donor acceptance according to feedback and store ratings is high and the adoption rate is above our expectations although comparison is difficult [15, 16].…”

Organizing Community Participation in Humanitarian Blood Donation Activities

“…Actually, it is become a common practice nowadays, that in general, social media thru Internet-connected smart phones utilized maximally in every aspects of promoting, motivating, recruiting and even retaining blood donors [11,14,15]. According to Semaldi [15], donor motivation consists of three stage of development, which can be seen in Fig.…”

Mobile applications for encouraging blood donation: A systematic review and case study

“… 7 In fact, some studies have shown that using mHealth or mobile health applications can actually increase around 22.7% the number of appointments for donating blood, saving around 600,000 lives. 8 …”