Assessment Of Knowledge, Attitude And Perception Of Blood Donation Among First Year Students: University Of Ghana

ABSTRACT

Background: People have been and always will be the source of blood, and although they know the necessity of blood donation, there is low participation of blood donation and thus, shortage of blood is always the situation. Potential donors in the age range of 18 to 25 years are very scarce, which means it is important to sensitize this group of population for regular blood donation. So far, no such study was found in Ghana, which aimed at young individual's knowledge of, attitude towards and perception of blood donation. Objective(s): The general objective of this study was to assess the influence of knowledge, attitude, perception and other socio-demographic factors on blood donation among first year students of College of Health Sciences, University of Ghana. Methods: The research design was descriptive and involved quantitative methods. The simple random sampling technique was applied to recruit participants. The study units were the first year students who were enrolled in different schools within the College of Health Sciences, University of Ghana. Thus, the sample size of 267 students was categorized into students majoring in health science related courses. Self-administered questionnaires were used as a primary data collection technique. The data was managed by coding, editing, analysis, and report writing. And data was analyzed with Stata version 14. Chi square test was used to determine the levels of significance of the relationships. Findings: The study found that, the students had appreciable knowledge of blood donation (86.3%). A fair attitude was shown (51.9%). They also had a good perception of donating blood and towards National Blood Service, Ghana (80.9%). Majority (60.3%) of respondents indicated that, they would be future donors without remuneration incentives. About 81.2% of participant's had an opinion that, blood donation is important and necessary. There were no significant relationships between socio-demographic characteristics and blood donation. However, 70% of the students would be positively influenced by their religious practice or convictions to donate blood. Conclusions / Recommendations: The study concluded that, although blood donation was perceived by many of the participants to be good, such positive attitude or even high level of knowledge may not lead to actual participation in blood donation. There is the need for policy makers to work together with National Blood Service, and come up with a national campaign strategy that could link positive knowledge, attitude and perception directly with blood donation practice. Simultaneously, it is necessary for policy makers to increase exposure to blood donation drives in the Universities, and make attempts to include blood donation drives in their volunteering activities. Additionally, national blood service should liaise with religious organizations to come up with means to encouraging their members on the importance of donating blood, connecting it with their religious principles.