Status and Deterrents of Blood Donation among Civil Servants in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Blood is an important ingredient in the modern public health delivery system to save the lives of many patients. However, in developing countries, due to lack of safe and reliable sources many patients requiring blood do not have timely access to it.
Objective: This study sought to identify the status and correlates of blood donation among civil servants in Bahir Dar Town.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted at Bahir Dar town. A pre-tested questionnaire was administered to 387 civil servants. The association between blood donation practice and socio demographic characteristics of respondents was tested using Chi-square. Principal Component Analysis was also used to identify the deterrents of blood donation.
Results: The majority (75.7%) of donors were males. Eighty-two percent of respondents never experienced blood donation. Among the 18 percent donors, 61 percent were replacement donors and 18.3 percent were voluntary donors. The associations between blood donation practice (P-values < 0.05) for sex and access to information (pvalues < 0.01) were found statistically significant. Blood donation knowledge of participants was inadequate, but have positive attitude towards voluntary blood donation. Inconvenience and knowledge gap related factors are important deterrents for blood donation among civil servants.
Conclusion: Low levels of knowledge and inconvenience related factors are major hindrances for blood donation. Therefore, extensive awareness creation and adjusting blood collection hours and establishing mobile blood collection centers at different public sectors could encourage voluntary blood donors. 

Key words: blood donation; Bahir Dar; blood donation attitude; civil servants; blood donation deterrents.