Abstract:
Over a million blood units are collected from every donor every year, nevertheless, many more millions still need to be collected to meet the global demand, ensure sufficient and timely provision of blood. A range of socio-demographic, organizational, physiological and psychological factors may influence on people’s willingness to donate blood. Public awareness responsibility and attitude regarding blood donation can be the major areas to be considered. The study was aimed to assess the public knowledge, attitude and barriers for donating blood voluntarily in selected Grama Niladhari divisions, in Manmunaipattu Divisional Secretariat division, Batticaloa District. A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out for a period of one year, community in selected Grama Niladhari divisions from Manmunaipattu D.S division in Batticoloa District. Simple random sampling method was used to select sample. After obtaining informed written consent, data were collected through a pre-designed and modified Interviewer Administered Questionnaire (IAQ). Collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 19. A total of 405 respondents were interviewed, of which 194 (47.9%) were male and 211 (52.1%) were female. The majority (51.36%) of the respondents had adequate knowledge regarding blood donation and majority of the respondents (92.3%) answered positively as blood donation is a healthy habit. Only 33.6 % of the individuals had previous experience on voluntary blood donations. Chi square tests were performed to understand the association of voluntary blood donations with certain factors. There were significant associations with the socio-demographic characteristics of gender, age, education, occupation and blood group with a p-value of less than 0.05 and a preferable likelihood ratio. These findings also indicated that a knowledge gap was existing about blood donation in the community of which could be improved by suitable awareness programmes. Although knowledge and attitude regarding blood donation were adequate, some barriers were influencing the voluntary blood donations in the community. In this study, attitudes regarding blood donations were not associated with socio-demographic characteristics but they may have contributed to the barriers of donating blood. As many factors identified in this study are modifiable, the investigators recommend to conduct health education programmes in the community, on motivating factors and barriers of blood donations.
