Factors influencing blood donation among the workers of a tertiary care hospital, Chitradurga: a comparative study

Abstract

Background: Blood donation is very vital to save human life as there is no substitute for human blood. Even though the hospital workers are well aware about blood donation, many of them are not into voluntary blood donation. Hence the present study focuses on the hospital workers.Methods: A cross-sectional study with purposive sampling was done in the workers of Basaveshwara Medical College. After obtaining verbal consent, the data was collected by a pre-designed, pre-structured, self-administered questionnaire. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.Results: A total of 258 workers participated, the mean age was 30.83±7.44; 97 (37.6%) were donors and 161 (62.4%) were non-donors. The donors were mostly in the age group 31-40 yrs (48.1%), males (63.3%), those who were single (40.2%), graduates (45.4%), belonging to socio-economic class I (56.7%). Most were voluntary donors (70.1%), 48.5% had donated 2-5 times, 24.7% were regular donors with 37.5% donating yearly. The predominant reason for not donating blood among the non-donors was ‘no request for blood’ (63.4%). Around 175 (67.8%) were willing to be voluntary donors in the future, whereas 57 (22.1%) were willing to donate only for family and friends and 26(10.1%) were not willing to donate blood. Willingness to donate was found to be significantly associated with age, education, occupation, socio-economic class, source of information and the type of donation.Conclusions: Males and those in higher socio-economic class predominantly donated blood. Donors considered blood donation as a humanitarian cause and felt it gives moral satisfaction than the non-donors. Non-donors thought blood donation leads to weakness/anemia and is harmful to health than the donors.