KNOWLEDGE, PERCEPTION, PRACTICE AND BARRIERS OF VOLUNTARY BLOOD DONATION AMONG SECONDARY HEALTHCARE WORKERS IN IBADAN METROPOLIS

Abstract

There has been reported shortage of blood in most hospitals’ blood bank in Ibadan. Voluntary blood donation (VBD) is the foundation for safe and sufficient blood supply in healthcare facilities. Healthcare workers can be valuable resources in making blood available to patients since they know when, how, where to donate blood. However, adequate supply of safe blood can only be assured through regular donations by voluntary unpaid blood donors. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate the knowledge, perception, practice and barriers to VBD among secondary healthcare workers in Ibadan metropolis. The study is a descriptive cross-sectional design. A four stage sampling technique which involved random selection health facilities, proportionate selection of healthcare workers to be interview from each local government, proportionate selection of cadre of health care workers from each facility picked and random selection of consenting 422 healthcare workers from the facilities. A validated self-administered semi-structured questionnaire developed from relevant literatures was used to elicit information on respondents’ social demographic characteristics, knowledge relating to VBD, perception towards VBD, practices and barriers to VBD. Knowledge was assessed on a 37- point scale and score ≤ 16 was categorized as poor while scores > 16 were categorized as good. Perception was assessed on a 17- point scale and score ≤ 8 was categorized as negative perception while > 9 was categorized as positive perception. Data analyses were done using descriptive statistics and chi-square at 0.05 level of significance. Age of respondents was 36.5±8.5 years and 66.6% were married. Majority (67.1%) were females. Majority of the respondents (73.2%) had poor knowledge relating to voluntary blood donation. Most (95.0%) knew the correct definition of VBD and majority (92.2%) also knew the suitable age for blood donation (BD). Only 22.0% and 19.2% knew how many times a healthy male and female can donate blood in a year respectively. About half of the respondents (50.5%) reported that nobody had ever approached them to donate blood and (27.5%) reported that BD leads to shortage of blood. Most (94.3%) knew that one who is hypertensive cannot donate blood while 88.2% and 89.3% knew that menstruating women and breast feeding mothers cannot donate blood respectively. About 51.9% of the respondents had positive perception and the mean perception score was 10.3±1.9. Few (33.6%) reported that they have donated blood before. Only (18.2%) reported that they have donated blood in the hospital; while 3.8% donated blood in the

last 10 years ago. Very few (7.3%) reported that fear of pre-screening result prevented them from donating blood. There was a significant relationship between knowledge of VBD and age of respondents as well as between level of education and perception towards BD. The knowledge of blood donation as well as voluntary blood donation among respondents was poor. Therefore there need for the government, non-governmental organizations and the collaborating agencies to intensify actions in creating more public awareness of VBD.