Understanding deferral rate and reason among voluntary blood donors at a tertiary care center

Abstract

Healthy Donor selection is necessary for procurement of safe blood in addition to the screenings of blood bags for infectious diseases. Deferrals lead to loss of precious blood/components available for transfusion in emergency situation. To avoid such problems, we should be aware about its reasons and frequency. To find the incidence of donors who were deferred from donating blood and to determine the causes for same.The study was conducted in the blood bank of tertiary health care center, from January 2015 to December 2017 to find the incidence of deferral and reason behind it. Criteria for deferral was decided as per guidelines given by national health authority.A total of 10,000 donors were screened of which 99% were voluntary donors (VD). The total 598 donors were deferred among 10000 registered during study period. The total donor deferral rate was 6%. The percentage of deferral amongst males was 5.7% and females 7.4%. A majority (65%) of the deferred donors were between 18 to 30 years. The major causes of deferral were anemia and hypertension.Analysis of the deferrals showed that the proportion of temporary deferral was more common than the permanent deferral. Conducting pre-donation camp awareness session can reduce the deferral rate. Temporarily deferred individuals must be informed and followed up to encourage donation in future.