KAP study on the Blood Donation by the Voluntary Blood Donors in Chennai - 2009

A well organized blood transfusion service is a vital component of any health care delivery system. An integrated strategy for blood safety is required for elimination of transfusion transmitted infections and for the provision of safe and adequate blood transfusion to the needy people. Blood transfusion is an important concern to the society as it is life saving in patients with bleeding disorders, accidents, surgeries, inherited/acquired hematological diseases and malignancies. Voluntary non remunerated blood donors are the cornerstone of a safe adequate supply of blood and blood components. The tasks of recruiting voluntary blood donors remain one of the major challenges for any blood transfusion service. Blood centers were also challenged to maintain adequate blood inventory in the face of increasing blood utilization. More complex and advanced therapeutic treatment in the field of surgery, haematology and oncology had led to increasing blood utilization. In our study, most of the donors are knowledgeable about blood donation with good attitude; however they feel comfortable in donating blood once in a year. If this feel good factor of once in a year donation could be changed into atleast twice in a year, a gap between demand and supply of the country may be narrowed down. There is a definite association between demographic factors such as age, gender, educational status and occupation with KAP of blood donation among voluntary blood donors. However, a larger study population comprised of varied demographic factors is necessary for a definite conclusion of their association with KAP of voluntary blood donation.