Demographic variations between blood donors and nondonors attending primary health care centers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2018–2019: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Context Blood is a fundamental and vital component of the human circulatory system. Blood transfusion is essential to save lives or improve health in different parts of the world. Despite the increased number of voluntary blood donors worldwide, the demand for blood transfusion continues to rise.Aims To assess the practice of blood donation and its demographic variations between donors and nondonors among primary health care’s (PHC) visitors of the Ministry of Health PHCs, in Jeddah city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from December 2018 to February 2019.Settings and design A multistage sampling technique was used to choose the selected five PHCs. The target sample size was calculated based on Raosoft software.Patients and methods A cross-sectional analytic study was conducted from December 2018 to February 2019 at Ministry of Health PHCs in Jeddah on a total sample of 400 patients (200 males and 200 females) who were recruited by a multistage random sampling technique. Data were collected by using self-administered questionnaire about sociodemographic data and practices of blood donation among the study participants.Results The participants were equally taken from both sexes (50% males and 50% females). Overall, 95% of the participants were from Jeddah, and 80% of the participants were Saudi nationals. There was a significant relation between donors and other independents variables such as PHC, age, and sex (P≤0.05).Conclusion We concluded that the prevalence of blood donation among Saudi population is relatively low. Older married males with high educational level and low monthly income were the most common socio-demographic factors among the studied group.