A study on knowledge, attitude, and practice on blood donation among health professional students in Anand: Gujarat

Abstract

Context: Role of youngsters in voluntary blood donation (VBD) is crucial to meet the demand of safe blood. Therefore understanding the various factors contributing to knowledge, attitude, and practice of VBD among college students is important. Aims: The present study aims to assess the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding blood donation among the health care students. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional study done at Anand from July 2012 to December 2013. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1000 health care medical students at Anand, Gujarat, India using a structured survey questionnaire. Statistical Analysis Used: The data were tabulated, and master chart was prepared. Analysis was performed by using the percentage. Results: Overall knowledge on blood donation among respondents was 37.3%, majority of the participants (78.7%) never donated blood in which 43.7% of the nondonors had negative attitude like blood donation leads to weakness (10.2%), anemia (25.5%), and 8.0% of nondonors felt that blood donation leads to reduced immunity. Majority of nondonors showed a positive attitude (53.1%) by expressing their willingness to donate blood if they were asked to donate blood (35.3%), about 9.8% of the nondonors don't know the importance of blood donation and 11.2% of nondonors don't know where to donate blood. In this study, 11.5% of students had donated blood only once, in which 38.8% of blood donors said no privacy was provided while donation, few (12.2%) had experienced some discomfort after donation and 50.4% of respondent said that they have not tried again. Conclusions: The present study recommends that even health care students' needs to be educated about the importance, awareness and motivation of blood donation on a regular basis and addressing the problems faced, while blood donation will strengthen the recruitment and retention of blood donors to donate blood on a regular basis.