Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Blood Donation Among Students of Health Science in Private University College in Mekelle, Tigray, and Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Human blood is an important element of human life. Incidentally, there is no substitute to blood hence donation of blood by humans is of utmost importance. Millions of blood units are collected from donors every year but demands are increasing day by day that is pushing for sufficient and timely provision of blood. Because of that the theme for Blood Donation Day in 2017 focuses on emergency situations, “Give Blood, Now and Often”. The national requirement for blood in Ethiopia is around 200,000 units per year but only 87,000 units are collected. From the total units to be collected, 10 units/1000 population, only 0.42 units/1000 people were collected. This indicates the severe shortage of blood supplies for the vast majority of the population. Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude, and practice of blood donation among students of health science in private university colleges in Mekelle, Tigray, and Ethiopia 2010 E.C. Method and Materials: A quantitative institution-based cross-sectional study design was used to conduct the study during June 2010 among health science students of private university college in Mekelle. There were a total of 221 respondents selected from three departments of the College of Health Sciences in the selected private university college of the city. Stratified sampling technique followed by simple random sampling was applied to select respondents. A pretested self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Then it was analyzed using scientific calculator and tally sheet was done to show the distribution of characteristics among respondents by using frequency and percentage and presented in the form of text, table and graph. Result: More than half of the participants, 115 (53.24%) were females. More than half (51.35%) of respondents were studying nursing. Among the respondents, about 85.9% of them were known they are four types of blood. Around 70% (69.90%) of them said that blood cannot be prepared artificially but others (30.09%) said that it can be prepared artificially. About 27% of respondents believed that blood donation leads to anemia. Among those who practice donation around two third (64.78%) of respondents were regular donors. Conclusion and Recommendation: One hundred seventy-seven (81.94%) and 39 (18.06%) of respondents have high and low level of knowledge regarding blood donation, respectively. More than 78.24% of respondents said they will donate in the future. Pertaining blood donation practice of participants, only less than one third (32.87%) had ever donated blood.

Keywords: Blood donation, health science students, knowledge, attitude, practice