A Study on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Blood Donation among Health Professional Students in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, South India

Background: Role of youngsters in voluntary blood donation is crucial to meet the demand of safe blood. Therefore understanding the various factors contributing to knowledge, attitude and practice of Voluntary Blood Donation (VBD) among youngsters is important. Objectives: The present study aims to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding blood donation among the health care medical students. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 400 health care medical students from Tagore Medical College and Hospital, Matha Medical College and Research Institute, and Tagore Dental College and Hospital Chennai, Tamil Nadu, South India using a structured survey questionnaire. Results: Overall knowledge on blood donation among respondents was 35.65%, majority of the participants (89.25%) never donated blood in which few of the non-donors had negative attitude (36.41%) like blood donation leads to weakness (12.61%), anemia (19.61%) and 4.2% of non-donors felt that blood donation leads to reduced immunity. Majority of nondonors showed positive attitude (63.59%) by expressing their willingness to donate blood if they were asked to donate blood (32.21%), about 7% of the non-donors don’t know the importance of blood donation and 24.37% of non-donors don’t know where to donate blood. In this study10.75% of students had donated blood only once, in which 34.88 % of blood donors said no privacy was provided while donation, few (11.63%) had experienced some discomfort after donation and 53.49% of respondent said that they have not tried again. Conclusion: The present study recommends that even student community needs to be educated about the importance and health benefits; awareness and motivation of blood donation on regular basis and addressing the problems faced during blood donation will strengthen the recruitment and retention of blood donors to donate blood on regular basis.