Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) among Blood Donors from Southern Sri Lanka

Abstract

Behaviour of the blood donors plays a major role in maintaining continuous blood supply for transfusion services worldwide. At the same time it is a challenge to obtain safe blood from the donors. A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted by using a self administered, anonymous questionnaire to determine knowledge, attitudes and practices among blood donors coming to the blood bank in the largest tertiary care centre in the Southern Province, Sri Lanka which caters to a multi ethnic community. This study included 339 randomly selected donors with age range from 18 to 57 with the mean age of 30 (SD 7.8). Majority of them were males (98.2%), unmarried (48.9%), Sinhala Buddhist (99.4%) and had post secondary education (92.9%). Average frequency of the blood donation was 4.6 (SD 3.4). 75.2% of them had previously donated blood (repeat donors) and 83.5% of repeat donors had their first donation before 30 years. 99 % of the donors knew at least one indication for blood transfusion. Majority of the donors stated that sexually transmitted diseases cannot be considered as a cause of transfusion transmitted disease and were unable to define "unprotected sex". Mass media significantly contributed to gain knowledge on transfusion transmitted diseases. The main reason given for not to re-donate was "no benefit for self". Regular donors tend to direct others for donation than occasional donors (P=0.001). Young, educated donors and low female contribution reported here is similar to other countries. Willingness for re-donation and low post donation complications are encouraging findings. Potentiality of donors for recruiting others for blood donation is a novel finding of this study.