Background: The increase in demand for blood products because of new surgical and medical procedures seeks more research to find new ways to recruit people to donate blood.
Objective/aim: To determine the level of people's knowledge about donating blood considering its relation with infectious and chronic diseases, drug abuse, unsafe sexual intercourse, menstruation and anaemia. In addition, their attitude towards blood donation regarding their previous behaviour and factors such as altruism, religion, family, fears and availability of blood donation centres has been evaluated.
Methods: This study was conducted in Tehran, Iran in 2009 on 1000 respondents. Data were collected through questionnaires that comprised 37 questions considering demographic and background characteristics, level of knowledge and positive and negative attitudes towards blood donation. Finally, data were analysed using SPSS software.
Results: Of 1000 in this study, 26% were donors, of whom 55% had donated blood more than once. The mean knowledge score of the participants was 8·6, which was associated with the subjects' gender and level of education (P = 0·031 and P < 0·001, respectively). Age, gender and level of education were significantly associated with one's attitude towards blood donation (P = 0·021, P < 0·001 and P = 0·003,respectively). Ninety-five percent of people have stated that their main motivation to donate blood was altruism.
Conclusion: Altruism and being encouraged by others had the leading roles in peoples' positive attitude towards blood donation; whereas hard access to blood donation centres seemed to be the main inhibitory factor.
© 2011 The Authors. Transfusion Medicine © 2011 British Blood Transfusion Society.