Publication:

Knowledge, attitude and practice regarding blood donation among medical students of Tamil Nadu- a cross sectional study

Background Blood can save millions of life. Blood transfusion is one of the most crucial interventions in conditions like trauma, childbirth, and various other medical and surgical life-saving procedures. In spite of extensive efforts and a number of blood donation programs being organized worldwide, the availability of blood remains too short to meet the demand. Students of health education form a potential source of eligible regular voluntary donors and also play a cruel role in motivating potential donors from the general population.

Methods A cross sectional study was conducted among the medical students and interns of Government Thiruvannamalai Medical College in July 2018. Universal sampling was done for this study. A pretested structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data entry and analysis was done using SPSS software version 21.

Results Out of 460 students, 53.3% have adequate knowledge about blood donation. 57.8% of students have positive attitude towards blood donation. Only 31.4% of them have donated blood before and anaemia was found to be the main reason among non-donors for not having donated blood.

Conclusions More than half of the students have adequate knowledge and positive attitude towards blood donation. Less than one-third have donated blood. It is recommended that there is a need to adopt strategies to sensitize and motivate them towards voluntary blood donation early in their medical career.