Motivations and attitudes towards the act of blood donation among undergraduate health science students

Abstract

A B S T R A C TBackground: Undergraduate students are a target for blood donation, as they constitute a young healthy and well-informed group. Aim: To understand motivations and attitudes underpinning the act of blood donation among undergraduate health science students. Materials and methods: Cross-sectional study enrolling undergraduate students of a College of Health Sciences in the Northeast of Portugal (January/February, 2017). Data collection tool was a self-administered questionnaire covering questions about motivations (n = 8) and attitudes (n = 5) towards the act of blood donation. Participants were classified by donation status into donors (one previous donation) and non-donors (never donated). Multiple logistic regression models were used to assess the association between each attitude and motivation on donation status. Odds-ratio (OR) and respective 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) adjusted for potential confounders, were obtained. Results: Out of 362 participants, 12.7% (n = 46) had ever donated blood and 56.5% (n = 26) of them were regular donors. Out of 316 non-donors, 88.0% (n = 278) will donate blood under request. There were no differences between donors and non-donors regarding the attitudes towards blood donation. From all motivations only "be a civic duty" had a significant impact on donor status, such that participants reporting this motivation are more likely to be blood donors (OR = 2.58; IC95%:1.34-4.99) than their counterparts. Conclusion: This study revealed that 80.0% of undergraduate health science students are non-donors, but they are available to donate blood under request. Campaigns and advertising methods focused on the emergent needs for blood donation could play an important role in the recruitment of new donors among undergraduate students.

Blood Donation Practice among Undergraduate Students in a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

“…A study by Gomes M. J. et al reports only a 12.7% prevalence of blood donation history among medical students. 3 Similarly, another study by Tariq S. et al also shows only 10.7% of students donated blood before. 4 Similar kind of trend can be observed in the findings of other another by Melku M. et al 5 A study conducted in India reports that despite having relatively good knowledge and attitude about voluntary blood donation among medical students, the prevalence is very low as 22.9%.…”

“…Different studies have shown the poor practice of blood donation among medical students despite having relatively good knowledge and attitude towards voluntary blood donation. [3][4][5][6] This study aims to find out the prevalence of the practice of blood donation among MBBS students studying from the first year to the final year of a medical college JNMA I VOL 58 I ISSUE 232 I DECEMBER 2020 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Along with it, major motivations for blood donation, and the factors deterring medical students from donating blood is also studied.…”

Knowing the Blood Nondonor to Activate Behaviour

“…However, in terms of management, this demographic is interesting. Young university students make up a numerous collective that is logistically very accessible (i.e., campaigns at universities, mobile units that can come closer to them) and very attractive for transfusion centres given their good health and great potential as long-term donors (Eshak et al 2019;Healy and Murphy 2017;Gomes et al 2019). In any case, it would be advisable to replicate the study while using other sampling systems which guarantee a sample distribution that is identical to the study population.…”

Service-learning to improve attitudes towards blood donation among university students

“…However, despite growing interest in the issue, especially among health sciences students (Cicolini and et al, 2019;Dean et al, 2018;Gomes and et al, 2019), most research has been conducted outside Europe, and therefore, the majority of available evidence comes from these sociocultural contexts (Eshak et al, 2019;Gazibara et al, 2015). In recent years, Portuguese (Gomes and et al, 2019) and Italian (Alfieri, 2017;Cicolini and et al, 2019;Zito et al, 2012) researchers have worked with younger students, highlighting the importance of putting good attitudes into practice even though the voluntary donation system is already considered to be working (De Los Santos and Firmo, 2019;WHO, 2010). In the case of Spain, further work is needed to increase donor numbers, since those aged 18-30 years only account for 30% of total donations (De Los Santos and Firmo, 2019;Spanish Federation of Blood Donors, 2019;WHO, 2019).…”

“…Several studies have identified barriers to blood donation such as false beliefs, obstacles, fears about the process, lack of information or time, as well as situations that encourage donation. They are also able to influence the decision to donate, both among health sciences students and those studying in other fields (Alfieri, 2017;Batiha and AlBashtawy, 2013;Cicolini and et al, 2019;Dean and et al, 2018;Gomes and et al, 2019;Vásquez et al, 2007;Zito et al, 2012).…”