Reasons to end the donor career: a quantitative study among stopped blood donors in the Netherlands�

SN Noor Ala Binti Abdullah

Unit Kutipan Darah

E. F. Klinkenberg,1,2 B. Romeijn,1 W. L. de Kort1,2 & E.-M. Merz1,3

Transfusion Medicine,June 2017

INTRODUCTION

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• Ensuring a sufficient number of blood donors who you can rely on is essential for blood banks.
• However, many countries face a decrease in the number of blood donors
• In Netherlands, a steady decrease in the number of whole-blood donors, from 400 000 registered donors in 2011 to almost 340 000 donors in 2015.
• We need to gain in-depth knowledge of the reasons to stop being a blood donor. Insight on stopping reasons may serve as important input for developing effective donor-retention strategies.

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AIM OF STUDY (OBJECTIVE)

• What are the main stopping reasons given by stopped blood donors?
• How do the main stopping reasons differ with regard to gender, age and total number of blood donations

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Inclusion criteria

-Donor who stopped donation in 2015 (18489)

• Eligible to re-register
• Had atleast gone through the medical examination
• Provided an e-mail address
• Given approval for research (7745)

Exclusion criteria

-Did not complete the survey

-Ineligible to donate for medical reason(306)

-Age 65 years or older (284)

-Donor who had re-registered as blood donors (35)

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MATERIAL AND METHODS

• Survey was designed in an online questionnaire platform
• Distributed via email (7098)
• Email not be delivered (647)
• Completed survey (2490)
• Final sample of stopped blood donor -1865

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• Stopping reasons were assessed by asking the respondent reasons to withdraw from donor pool. In total, 23 possible stopping reasons were included (Table 1)

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OUTCOME FOR 1st OBJECTIVE

• Figure 1 showed the reported stopping reasons.
• Most frequently reported was experiencing a negative physical event during or after donation (28.4%,n=529 respondents)
• Second highest reported is inconvenient opening hours (26.1%,n=486 respondents) ,and time constraints due to work or study (23.0%,n=446 respondents)
• Temporary deferral (e.g. for a low Hb or travelling) – 18.8%,n=350 respondents

OUTCOME FOR 2nd OBJECTIVE

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• stopping reasons for blood donor are different according to
• Gender
• Age
• Number of donation

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1. Gender

• Men appeared to be more often dissatisfied with the blood bank policy.
• Women reported negative physical experiences as a stopping reason almost twice as often as men.
• Women were also more likely to stop due to (temporary) personal problem

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2. Age

• Participants age 19-33 years negative physical experience were a main reason to stop and temporary deferral, stress and fear of donating blood was also more often reported.
• Participants age 34-50 years, ‘no time to donate because of raising children’ was frequently reported and participant age 51-64 years old, the closing of donation centre was frequently reported
• Women and younger adults were more likely to quit because of a temporary deferral.

3. Number of donation

Multivariate analysis

• Dependent variables : clustered stopping reasons
• Independent variables: age, gender and number of donations

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DISCUSSION

• Among survey respondent, ‘negative physical experience’ was the most frequently reported stopping reason and de-register.
• ‘Time constraints’ was also an important stopping reason. It was reported most frequently among the younger group compared to adult age 51-64 years. Such as work and study was the most frequently reported.
• Stopping reasons related to the blood bank organization was also reported. Reason such as closing down of a centre or inconvenient opening hours.

DISCUSSION

• A previous temporary deferral is associated with reason to stop donation entirely.
• Although times constrains due to obligation and raising children were often reported, this proportions a lower compared to other studies.
• An acute physical problem such as nausea will more commonly lead to a temporary lapse, whereas chronic physical problem may lead to stopping entirely.
• Hence, it appears that experienced barriers and reasons to postponed donation different from reasons to actually end the donor career.

LIMITATION

• Non- response bias due to 65% of the selected person did not fill in the survey
• A specific target group- donors who were eligible to return to donor database

CONCLUSION

• They found that the stopping reasons for blood donors are dependent on gender, age and the number of donations.
• Stopping reasons differ substantially from barriers experienced by current, lapsed and non-donors

Recommendation

• More research on preventing negative physical experiences and implementing more flexible opening hours are advised.

�� PUSAT DARAH NEGARA�

YEALY STATISTICS FOR WB DONATION

Rujukan: BBIS 1

DONOR DEFERRAL CENTRE & MOBILE

RUJUKAN BBIS 1

CADANGAN

• Email-reminder
• Sms
• Aplikasi hp-my blood
• Blood Donor Run – World Blood Donor Day