Assessment of levels of awareness towards blood donation in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Backgroundblood products is an interesting term as all blood and blood transfusion procedures carry risk even with advance screening of donors and donated blood. In Saudi Arabia voluntary donors are either the only source or not, the other source is paid donors and the lack of volunteers represents a major challenge. This is usually attributed to low community awareness regarding voluntary blood donation. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the levels of awareness towards blood donation in northern Saudi Arabia.Methodologyin this descriptive cross sectional survey, data about blood donation were obtained from 717 Saudi volunteers living in the city of Hail, Saudi Arabia. A Purposeful questionnaire was designed and used for obtaining of the necessary data.ResultsWhen asking the participants to rate the level of awareness about blood donation in Saudi Society, the majority of participants categorized the levels as good followed by very good and poor, representing 48.8%, 29.3%, and 22% participants, respectively.Conclusionthe broad concept of blood donation is still poor in Saudi Arabia. Further educational plans are needed to raise the level of awareness and increase the perception of blood donation among Saudi population. Efforts should be made to involve females in blood donation duties.

Blood donation among university students: Practices, motivations, and barriers in Saudi Arabia

“…Participants' knowledge regarding blood donation was found to be low, as they were not aware of the principles of blood donation. These results agree with national studies [7][8][9][10] and international studies conducted in Jordan [12] and Kuwait. [13] Alsalmi et al [11] in their study among health professions students in Saudi Arabia, concluded that the level of awareness was sufficient at 60% of study participants.…”

“…Data were collected for the study using a predesigned structured questionnaire whose design was based on WHO guidelines and the relevant literature. [ 5 6 7 8 9 10 ] The self-administered questionnaire was distributed by the study team. The study team first visited the target colleges, identified the study participants, stated the study objectives, and distributed the questionnaires.…”

“…Many studies have examined blood donation and transfusion among the Saudi population, and they have revealed valuable data about perceptions about and the prevalence of blood donation. [ 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ] A study conducted among the King Abdulaziz Medical City population aimed to measure respondents’ knowledge of, attitudes toward, and motivations for donating blood. Almost 45.8% of respondents claimed that they had a history of donating blood.…”

“…[ 9 ] In a recent community study conducted among 717 Saudi volunteers in Hail City, Saudi Arabia, the authors concluded that the concept of blood donation is still poorly understood in Saudi Arabia. [ 10 ] Although many studies have been conducted in different parts of Saudi Arabia,[ 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ] no previous studies have been conducted in the Jazan region. Therefore, this study aims to assess the awareness and perceptions of, knowledge and misconceptions about, and motivations for blood donation, as well as reasons for not donating blood, among a sample of Jazan University students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).…”

Influence of peer‐derived donor recruitment on the youth perception on blood donation among college students

“…Social media channels are becoming increasingly important for blood banks and transfusion services and appear to be a new tool in donor education and recruitment. While 7% of donors reported being attracted to donate blood by social media in Germany [12], social media was reported to be the main source by the public in Saudi Arabia, regardless of the educational level of the participants [13]. In our study, 93% of the participants are social media users who have seen an advertisement for blood donation on social media.…”