Demographics of Blood Donors at a Regional Blood Transfusion Centre in a Developing Country Pakistan

Abstract

Objective: The study was aimed to gather demographic data from blood donors to develop strategies for improving voluntary blood donations.
Material and Method: This study utilized a cross-sectional descriptive design and was conducted at the Armed Forces Institute of Transfusion (AFIT), from November to January 2021.Demographic information of blood donors was collected using a pre-designed form. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 23, including calculations of frequency, percentage, and mean ± standard deviation. The blood donors were cate- gorized into different groups based on caste, education, how frequently they donate blood and type of donation. Chi-square test was used.
Results: The blood donors presenting at regional centre were 28.53 ± 7.25 years of mean age. Out of 1000 blood donors, there were 98.8% male and 1.2% were female. Most blood donations came from individuals of Punjabi ethnicity (72.4%). Among the various caste systems in Pakistan, the highest number of donors belonged to the Rajput caste (9.3%). The majority were directed donors (93.6%) and were donating for the first time (65%). There was a positive correlation between the frequency of blood donation and the level of education. Regular donors (50.4%) were mostly those who had qualification of graduation, with a p-value of 0.001.
Conclusion: We found that individuals with higher levels of education are more likely to be frequent voluntary blood donors.