Original Articles, KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE REGARDING BLOOD DONATION AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS OF A PRIVATE MEDICAL COLLEGE, LAHORE
Abstract
Abstract
Background: Blood donation is helpful in saving the lives of millions. Voluntary blood donation is necessary for sustainable blood supply.
Objective: To determine knowledge, attitude and practices of 1st to 5th year medical students about blood donation and their association with the sociodemographic factors in a private medical college.
Materials and method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students from first to final year during April to September 2022 after approval from Ethical Review Board. Data was collected on a pretested self-administered questionnaire from all the students who were present on the day of data collection after taking verbal consent from them. The data was analyzed by SPSS-22. Chi-square/Fisher’s exact was applied to find out the association of sociodemographic factors with knowledge, attitude and practices of blood donation. A p-value of ≤0.05 was considered as significant
Results: Out of 631 students, 601 who filled the questionnaire had 0.5% good, 14.6% satisfactory and 84.9% poor knowledge. The positive attitude was reported by 80% students. However only 28.1% had ever donated blood. There is statistically significant association of overall knowledge (p-value=0.01) and overall attitude (0.013) with the year of class. Practice of donating blood has significant relationship with age (p-value=0.043), gender (0.000) and year of study (p-value=0.009).
Conclusion: The overall knowledge of medical students about blood donation was poor. Majority of the students had positive attitude about blood donation and only more than one quarter had donated blood. There is significant association of academic year with knowledge regarding blood donation.
KEY WORDS: Blood donation, Medical students, Knowledge, Attitude, Practices
