JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

Abstract

Background: Blood is an important resource, helps patients suffering from life-threatening condi-tions and have a life-saving role in maternal and perinatal care. Ensuring safe and sufficient blood supplies requires the development of a nationally coordinated blood transfusion service based on voluntary non-remunerated blood donations. This study was undertaken to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of blood donation among residents in an urban field practice area of a government medical college in Chennai. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was undertaken among the randomly selected 150 resi-dents in the field practice area, Chennai. Data was collected using a semi-structured, self-administered ques-tionnaire, after getting informed consent. The responses were verified twice, entered and analysed using IBM SPSS version 16.0. The descriptive and inferential statistics of the responses to the questions were cal-culated. Results: Among 150 participants, 77 were males and 73 were females. Around 70% of the partici-pants knew their own blood group status. Almost half of the participants had acquired the knowledge about blood donation through media. Only about 28% participants had donated blood previously. Among those who had donated blood, 79.8% had donated as an act of altruism. Nearly 40% said that they had no time to donate blood. Conclusions: From our study, we conclude that people had better knowledge about blood donation. Many people had positive attitude towards blood donation practices. Though they had good knowledge and attitude, the practice of donating blood was found to be far less.

Keywords: Blood, Voluntary blood donation.