Evaluation of the motivation and awareness of young blood donors in Kerman towards blood transfusion in 2010-2011

Background and ObjectivesSince all of our blood donors are volunteer and unremunerated and our country is a young society, we aimed to evaluate the motivation and the effective motivating factors for blood donation in the youth.
Materials and MethodsThis study was a cross sectional descriptive study. In this study, 1000 questionnaires were completed by donors during 2010-2011. Chi-square test and SPSS 11.5 software were used in analyzing data.
ResultsThe most common motivation of our donors was altruism (89.2%); 18.4% from these donors donated for the purpose of free of charge check up and 21.8% for HIV testing. The average age of studied cases was 24.6 with 82.1% of donors being male and the others 179 (17.9%) female.71.1% of donors were single and 33.4% had bachelor and upper degrees. Out of the participants, 84.1% had awareness of donation while 12.4% had no information about window period of infectious diseases.
Conclusions The present study showed that donors had little awareness about blood transfusion and transfusion transmitted diseases. It is necessary to pay more attention to educational programs to change the youth into safe and regular blood donors.