IMPACT OF FACE TO FACE EDUCATION ON BLOOD DONATION

Summary: Background:In Iran, despite more funded efforts to increase recruitment of femaleblood donors, women include <10% of the blood donors. Low rates of female voluntaryblood donation have been related to social, demographic, medical and educational andattitudinal factors.Aims:The purpose of the present study was to evaluate impact of face to face edu-cation on people’s willingness to donate blood specially women, by increasingknowledge level of blood donation and correction of false beliefs.Methods:In a cooperative program with health division of Tehran municipality, aninterventional study was designed based on educational plan for blood donationvolunteers. In order to educate population by face to face, we trained 1600 volunteerwomen as health mediator. Volunteer health mediators (VHMs), with postgraduatelevels education in paramedical skills, have been recruited by health division of Tehranmunicipality in order to transfer information and materials of health to general pop-ulation, already. Training sessions for these persons were done by unique educationalmaterials and trainers . Two weeks after each training session, a blood collectionprogram was established by TBTC (Tehran Blood Transfusion Center) mobile bloodcollecting division, However, VHMs were being face to face educating to people wholive in every region. Total number of blood donations in 22 Tehran municipally regionsfrom March 2010 to February 2011 and March 2009 to February 2010 were consideredas case and control groups, respectively.Results:Total number of volunteers in trial 2 were 9178 including 2785 females and6393 males instead 4074 including 454 females and 3620 males in trial 1. Female/maleratio in trials 1 and 2 were 0.13 and 0.44 (P < 0.001), respectively. Of the 4074 donors,24% (981/4074) in trial one and of the 9178 donors, 29% (2693/9178) in trial two weredeferred based on the Iranian blood donation questionnaire, P < 0.001. The most common cause of deferral donors in trial 1 and 2 were secondary erythrocytosis, 20%(197/982) and anemia, 21.5% (581/2693), respectively. Risk behaviors related to bloodborne infections showed a significant statistical decrease in trial two, although comparison revealed no significant statistical differences between HBS Ag, HCV Ab, andHIV Ab positive test results in two trials.Conclusions:The results from this study suggest that face to face education havestrongly effects on blood donation which is accompanied by an increase in number andquality of donations. Significant increases in donor attendance, blood donation andfemale blood donor recruitment were seen. The above article has been submitted inTransfusion Medicine journal