Analysis of predonation deferral of blood donors in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Transfusion medicine forms an important part of healthcare practice. Healthy blood donors are the starting point for blood transfusion safety. Blood donors can be rejected for various reasons, either temporary or permanent. To ensure safety and good quality of blood donation, donor selection becomes an important criterion for the safety of both the donor and recipient. Therefore, it is important to study the pattern of deferrals, to reduce unnecessary deferrals, and to encourage blood donation. Objectives: The objective was to study and analyze various causes of deferral of blood donors and to categorize donors according to the type of deferrals, age, and gender. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective analysis carried out at a tertiary hospital for 3 years. Details of their age, gender, and physical and laboratory tests were recorded as per the standard protocol. Results were then statistically analyzed with emphasis to know the causes of deferral. Results: A total of 1522 (13.1%) out of 11,665 donors were rejected. Among them, 638 were men (41.9%) and 884 were women (58.1%) with a female-to-male ratio of 1.4:1. Majority donors belonged to the age group of 18–30 years (65.5%). The most common reason for temporary deferral was low hemoglobin (54.6%) while that of permanent deferral was hypertension (4.1%). Conclusion: This study emphasized the need for better nutrition to improve the hemoglobin level which was the most common cause for temporary deferral and increased awareness to decrease the other causes of deferrals of blood donors.