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Knowledge, attitudes and practices towards blood donation in Barbados

Yes / The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 100% blood should be from voluntary non-remunerated donors (VNRD) yet the majority of blood donations (75%) in Barbados are family/replacement donations. Increasing VNRD is paramount to achieving a safe, reliable blood supply and understanding the population is a strategy suggested by the WHO to inform donor recruitment and education.
To obtain information to devise strategies for a voluntary donor mobilization campaign in Barbados.
Methods: Participants in Barbados (n=429) completed a self-administered questionnaire in 2014. The questionnaire comprised 31 questions including demographics (age, sex, highest educational attainment) and blood donation-related knowledge, attitudes and practices. Analysis of variance, t-test and linear regression were used to analyse data.
Results: Fifty-three per cent (n=219) of participants had previously donated blood; only 23.9% of these had donated within the past two years and almost half were family/replacement donors only. Knowledge deficits included blood donation requirements, deferral factors and maximum yearly donations. Most participants (79%) were willing to donate with more information. Participants with higher educational attainment and previous donors had higher total knowledge and attitude scores (p<0.01). Single, female, and younger participants were less likely to donate blood (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Barbados can likely increase voluntary blood donation rates by addressing knowledge deficits through education campaigns and increasing awareness of the need for donation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/10177
Date16 September 2016
CreatorsAtherley, A.E., Taylor, C.G., Whittington, A., Jonker, Cornelis
Source SetsBradford Scholars
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, Accepted manuscript
Rights© 2016 Wiley. This is the peer-reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tme.12359. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

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