The risk debate in blood transfusion: how perceptions, beliefs and behaviours can be shaped by an efficient communication.

Abstract

The issues of risk and safety have been of prime importance in our field over the last decade. The profession has considered the question of risk assessment and risk management in depth, concentrating first and foremost on technical (biological) approaches, a little less on economy and least of all on the social aspect of the question.Transfusion therapy is probably safer than it has ever been, but public perception and the increase in litigations may suggest the opposite. Transfusion professionals must re‐inspire confidence in the field.In transfusion medicine, informing the patient about to receive blood products is part of the fundamental relationship that associates the duties of the physician and the patient's rights.It has been shown that the basic principles of the communication process constitute a transfer of information. In order to be effective, the communication process should include a feedback, i.e. dialogue between the sender and the receiver of the information.This paper first introduces the notion of risk and the theories about its perception. It then presents the results of a study carried out in a French hospital, aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of the communication process between patients about to receive blood products and the physician/surgeon in charge of the patients. The discussion considers how efficient communication can shape the perception of risks and make blood transfusion risks ‘socially acceptable’.