Awareness, Perception, and Practices Towards Blood Donation Among Undergraduate Health Science Students of India During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

To assess the awareness, perception, and practices of health science students towards blood donation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional study was done among the undergraduate medical, dental, physiotherapy, and audiology, speech and learning pathology students in May 2021. A self-administered questionnaire designed using Google Doc was used for data collection. Out of the 461 participants, only 171(37.1%) knew that Coronavirus was not transmitted through blood transfusion. Only 125(27.1%) participants knew that a minimum of 14 days is required before a donor who tested positive for COVID-19 can donate blood. As many as 339(73.5%) participants expressed their willingness to donate blood during the current pandemic. Having donated blood in the past ( p = 0.001), having vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines ( p = 0.029), having taken both the vaccine doses ( p = 0.0499), and absence of anaemia ( p = 0.0159) were associated with willingness to donate blood during the pandemic. Only 83(18%) participants had donated blood after the onset of the pandemic. Out of the rest 378, 106(28%) participants did not donate blood due to the fear of getting infected with Coronavirus. Absence of chronic co-morbidities ( p = 0.0288) was associated with the history of having donated blood after the onset of COVID-19 pandemic among the participants. Awareness of participants regarding certain key issues related to blood donation and COVID-19 were found lacking. Counselling services to alleviate fears associated with blood donation and awareness sessions to remove misconceptions are required among students to improve blood donation practices.

Determining the Practices and Opinions of University Students on Blood Donation in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Descriptive Study

“…It was determined that students without chronic comorbidities donated blood at a significantly higher rate. 16 In the study, it was determined that those who received education on blood donation and those who knew their blood group made more donations before the pandemic (p<0.001).…”

“…It was determined that 28% of the students had not donated blood for fear of contracting COVID-19. 16 In addition to the pandemic, gender and age can affect the blood donation behavior of individuals. In a study conducted in Nigeria, it was determined that 58.9% of donors (n=1638) were between the ages of 15-29 and that the majority of them were male.…”

Doação de sangue durante a pandemia da Covid-19: conhecimentos, práticas e atitudes dos estudantes de medicina

“…Os jovens constituem público-alvo para doação de sangue pela tendência de serem saudáveis, dinâmicos e com muitos anos de vida pela frente 10,11 . Entretanto, captar e fidelizar doadores é um grande desafio para os serviços de hemoterapia 4, [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] . Este estudo analisou CAPs dos estudantes de medicina frente à escassez de sangue iniciada em março de 2020 e perpetuada a partir do mês de abril do mesmo ano, devido à instauração de um cenário pandêmico pela COVID-19 [27][28][29][30][31][32] , revelando os principais pontos a serem trabalhados e divulgados, com o intuito de ajudar no desenvolvimento das próximas campanhas de doação de sangue e entender as principais barreiras e incentivos, a fim de obter um maior número de doadores.…”

“…Embora os jovens estejam rodeados de informações rápidas e de fácil acesso veiculadas em mídias públicas, redes sociais e no ensino superior, durante a graduação, constatou-se na presente amostra, conhecimento inadequado 16,21,25 nas indagações significativas ao estudo.…”

Donorship as a component of humanistic education of medical students

“…Потребность в донорской крови возрастает в условиях массовых катастроф. В период пандемии новой коронавирусной инфекции (COVID-19), [7]. Исследование с участием 225 студентовмедиков и аспирантов, проведенное в Эфиопии, выявило, что 79,2% имели адекватные знания и положительное отношение к донорству крови.…”