The Study of Deferred Blood Donors at Tertiary Level Hospital Based Blood Bank of South Gujarat

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Pre-donation donor screening is must for the safety of the blood donor and recipient. Deferrals lead to loss of precious whole blood donors and blood units available for transfusion purposes. AIM: To record and document the current rate and reasons for donor deferral in our tertiary care hospital based blood bank to modify recruitment strategy for blood donors. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Study was conducted by retrospective data analysis of whole blood donors (Voluntary/Replacement), arrived for donating blood at blood bank and in outdoor camps, during the period 1 st July 2010 to 30 th June 2014. The donor selection was done by pre-donation screening tests like questionnaire followed by physical examination and haemoglobin estimation. National guidelines were used for selection and deferral of donors. The deferred donor's data was analyzed statistically. RESULT: Out of 34380 blood donors who came to donate blood, 31049(89.63%, out of which 97.51% voluntary donors) were eligible for donation and 3331(10.37%) blood donors were deferred. The deferral rate among male population 7.47% and female population 42.09% were observed. Odds ratio for deferral in female donors was 8.99, implying thereby that chance of deferral in females is nearly 9 times higher as compared to males. The five leading causes for male donor deferral were low haemoglobin, hypertension, medication, and malaria& alcohol intake in last 48 hours & for the female donor deferral were low haemoglobin, menstruation, medication, low weight & hypotension. CONCLUSIONS: Studying the frequency and the different causes of donor deferral will help to identify sections of the population which could be targeted for increasing and retaining of the existing pool of voluntary blood donors and also to guide and provide the necessary essential database for the policy design and programme implementation at local, regional, and national level.

Pattern and outcome of donor deferral -? need of hour

“…8 In our study, the donor deferral rate was 5.56 % for various reasons. Comparison of deferral rates in different studies is as shown in Table 6.…”

“…Anemia (42.26 %) is the commonest cause of temporary donor deferral in present study. It is also the commonest cause of deferral among males ( [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] It is suggested to lower the accepted standards for hemoglobin in females to increase their eligibility for the donation. 14,19,7,8,10,12,20 Proper information, counseling and education given to potential donors prior to the donation can significantly reduce the donor deferral because of alcohol consumption.…”

An Evaluation of Blood Donor Deferral Causes at Tertiary Care Centre of Srikakulam District

“…In the present study, the overall donor deferral was 7% with predominance in females (33.40%). Snehal Paul et al 1 from Gujarat reported donor deferral of 10.37%, Agnihotri et al 2 of Western India (11.6%), Chaudary et al 3 (16.4%), Bahadur et al 4 (9%), Rabeya et al 5 (5.6%), Kwa et al 6 of Singapore (7.1%), Unikrishnan B. 7 (5.2%), Nagarekha Kulkarni.…”

“…Snehal Patel et al 1 in their study observed that the most common reason for deferral was anaemia followed by hypertension (16.51%). Agnihotri et al 2 (11.1%), Unnikrishnan et al 7 (13.18%) and Rathod et al 12 (14.74%) in their study hypertension was the main cause for deferral.…”

“…8 and Custer et al 11 reported 68% of temporary and 32% of permanent deferral causes in their study. Snehal Patel et al 1 observed that in 79.52% the causes for donor deferral were temporary and 20.47% were permanent. In the present study, 19.71% were permanent deferrals and 80.28% were temporary deferrals.…”