The impact of knowledge, attitude, and perception of blood donation among college students

A valuable topic to discuss as we celebrate world blood donor day. Blood is an invaluable, life-sustaining fluid. Blood transfusion is considered an indispensable component of health care as it saves millions of lives each year worldwide, permits complex medical and surgical interventions, and improves life expectancy and life quality in patients with a variety of acute and chronic conditions. As a result of the advances in clinical sciences and population increase, the need for blood is growing day by day all over the world.1, 2

Despite extensive efforts and some blood donation programs being organized worldwide; the availability of blood remains short to meet the increased demand for it. The WHO advocates that 3%-5% of the population should donate blood every year; this would be the ideal rate for maintaining a country’s stock of blood and blood products at an acceptable level.3 Although many individuals are eligible to donate blood and numerous awareness campaigns promote its importance, only a small percentage of eligible individuals about one-third donate blood in developed countries, and even fewer do so in developing countries.1

World Health Organization (WHO) recommends countries focus on young people to achieve 100% non-remunerated voluntary blood donation by 2020.2, 4 It also recommends that all countries should be self-sufficient in all blood products and that all blood donation should be voluntary, anonymous, and non-remunerated.2

Developed countries have successfully implemented Evidence-based strategies for providing safe and adequate blood supply. Developing and transitional countries are making efforts toward this goal by utilizing the time-tested approach based on surveys to identify knowledge, attitude, and practice on blood donation. In a review of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice studies in developing countries, the authors concluded that Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice studies provide information on strategies that can be formulated to sustain voluntary blood donation.5

The student population is highly amenable to the idea of voluntary blood donation and the student population is very good at recruiting new blood donors, and we could retain them for future success.6 Thus, the Assessment of knowledge, attitude, and perception amongst the college student population regarding blood donation will help in designing effective health education strategies to improve voluntary blood donation and to strengthen the retention of voluntary blood donors.