Distribution of Blood Groups and Rhesus factor among selected sample of Iraqi Students

Background: There exists ignorance of blood groups among many people and surprisingly even among the literates. Despite the importance of this health parameter in blood transfusion, it is also one of the requirement of obtaining driving license and national identity card. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine the frequency of the blood grouping (ABO) and Rhesus (Rh) factor of the blood groups and to determine the awareness on the importance of blood grouping among the study′s population Subjects and methods: The total number of sample size of this study was 278 students were selected randomly. The study was carried out among two cohort of student′s population. First cohort was 168 medical students from Faculty of Medicine, while second cohort included 110 non-medical students from Baquba Technical Institute′ students. The study samples have their blood groups determined according to that documented before. While those who don′t know their ABO & Rh blood grouping marked as DK. Results: The result of this study shows that the rate of blood grouping were 25.5%, 22.3%, 32.0%, 6.1%, and 16.9 %, for blood group A, B, O, AB, and DK respectively ;while for Rhesus factor blood grouping the results revealed that the rates were 77.0%, 6.1% and 16.9%, for positive, negative and DK respectively. Conclusion: The blood group O with Rh positive was the most common prevalent among the selected groups, Knowledge of blood group distribution is important for clinical studies, for reliable geographical information and for forensic studies in the population.