Knowledge, attitude, motivational factors and barriers for donating blood voluntarily among people aged between 18-55 years living in Manmunaipattu, Batticaloa

Abstract

According to global data, there is a gradual decline in voluntary blood donations throughout the past decade. Increase in the life expectancy, rates of accidents and specialized surgeries have increased the rate of blood usage. It has become a global need to study on blood donation to obtain safe blood from the donors. The statistics available in the blood bank, Batticaloa number of voluntary blood donors are very less in all divisions. A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted by using an interviewed administered questionnaire, anonymous questionnaire to determine the knowledge, attitude, motivational factors and barriers among people in selected Grama Niladhari Divisions in Manmunaipattu. Simple random sampling method was used to select the sample. Validity of the study instrument was done by primary supervisor of our study, medical officer and nursing-in-charge attached to the blood bank. The ethical clearance was obtained from Ethical Review Committee, Faculty of Health care sciences, Eastern University. Data was entered, analyzed and interpreted using SPSS version 19. This study included 405 randomly selected participants with age range from 18-55 years with the mean age of 30(SD 7.8). Majority of them were females (52.1%), married (48.9%), Tamils Hindu (89.4%) and had secondary education (92.9%).33.1% of them had previous experience on voluntary blood donation. 51.36% had adequate knowledge on eligible criteria for blood donors.92.3% of them answered positively as blood donation is a healthy habit. Altruism, peer pressure was significant motivational factors, in which the majority accepted donating blood as social responsibility. 55% of them responded that fear of seeing blood, fear of needle pain and fear of gaining weight were major barriers for not to donate blood voluntarily. Motivating the individuals from the society for voluntary blood donation through conducting series of well-planned awareness programme is a novel finding of this study.