Plateletpheresis donation through donor awareness, motivation, and recruitment drives: A unique concept and experience from a tertiary care oncology centre in India.

Abstract

The majority of blood donor motivational and awareness activities are directed toward whole blood donation and not much emphasis is given to the plateletpheresis. The study was designed to analyze the effectiveness of the unique concept of platelet drives (PD) to increase voluntary plateletpheresis donations. The study was a retrospective study conducted at a tertiary care oncology hospital-based blood transfusion services (BTS). A total of 13 PDs were conducted from January 2016 to December 2020. A total of 559 potential donors came for the donor registration and 125 donors got deferred on medical history. A total of 434 donors gave their samples for the testing of plateletpheresis. The median age of potential male and female donors was 32 and 30 years respectively. A total of 58 males and two females have donated single donor platelets (14.3% vs. 7.4%, P=0.319). The median age of male and female donors was 36 and 42 years, respectively. In male donors, 48 had donated once, seven donated twice, two donated thrice and one donor donated four times. Out of two female donors, one donor donated twice and the other donor donated four times. The female donors were more committed to repeat donations (P=0.004). Since the start of PDs, the number of voluntary donations has increased considerably over the years. PDs have helped in increasing the number of voluntary plateletpheresis donors. All the BTS must have the standard operating procedures in place for these kinds of awareness and motivational drives.