Emotions and beliefs arising from replacement blood donation may hinder transitioning to exclusive voluntary non‐remunerated blood donation

Abstract

AbstractBackground and objectivesFor many developing countries, achieving exclusive voluntary non‐remunerated blood donation requires converting an existing pool of family replacement donors consisting of individuals recruited by health professionals and persons they recruited. This study was done to evaluate emotions and beliefs in these two groups and their effect on future blood donor intentions.Materials and methodsCross‐sectional, descriptive, questionnaire‐based surveys were administered by two medical student research groups. Survey 1 assessed persons recruited by health professionals to serve as or recruit replacement donors and Survey 2, individuals recruited by patients or their relatives to be replacement donors.ResultsThe majority of Survey 1 participants experienced negative emotional reactions to being asked to solicit and actually asking persons to serve as family replacement donors (72·3% and 50·2%, respectively). The proportion that would serve as a replacement donor increased from 55·9% to 74·1% (P < 0·001). Among Survey 2 participants, 61% (P < 0·001) would more willingly donate blood if directly approached by the person in need.ConclusionEmotions and beliefs arising from family replacement donation encouraged future replacement donation intention.