Attitude and practices of blood donation among college students

Abstract

Background: Now-a-days lots of patients are saved because of safe blood donations. Still day by day requirements of blood donations are increasing. World Health Organization (WHO) has the target to achieve 100% voluntary unpaid donors by year 2020. College students are young potential source of safe blood donors. The aim and objective of this study was to get a current status of attitude and practices of blood donations of college students in Sambalpur district. Material and Methods – Medical College and Arts College students of Sambalpur district were recruited for this study. Students interested to participate in this survey were faced interview and gave consent. Data regarding blood group, attitude and practices of blood donations collected during interview. Results: Total 644 students were participated in this study which included 374 medical college students and 270 Arts college students. We found 234 (36.3%) students were donor and 410 (63.7%) were non donor. Among donors majority were medical college students. Out of total donors 96.5% were voluntary unpaid donors. Out of 410 non donors 149 (36.2%) had positive attitude to donate blood and 261 (63.8%) had negative attitude for blood donation. Most of donors were high socioeconomic status students. Conclusion: During our survey we were able to make some awareness about the importance of blood donation. Effective counsellings is very much essential to increase number of donors among college students which is effective to achieve the goal of WHO.