| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2021 | Volume
: 2
| Issue : 1 | Page : 9-13 |
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Knowledge and practices of blood donors regarding COVID-19
Tarika Sharma1, Vaseem Raza1, Manglam Kumari1, Swati Srivastava2, Karthik Ponnappan3
1 College of Nursing, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi, India
2 Department of Transfusion Medicine, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi, India; Liver Intensive Therapy Unit, Kings College Hospital, London, UK
3 Liver Intensive Therapy Unit, Kings College Hospital, London, UK
Correspondence Address:
Ms. Tarika Sharma
College of Nursing, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, New Delhi
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
DOI: 10.4103/jascp.jascp_18_20
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Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic has threatened the safety of both donors and recipients thus negatively impacting the blood donation process. Home confinement limits the ability of donors to attend blood services and the staff to take part in collection teams as well. The restrictions and limitations of large gatherings also reduce the number of large blood drives and campaigns. Aim: The current survey was undertaken soon after the official announcement of nationwide lockdown to assess the COVID-19-related knowledge and expressed practices about precautions among blood donors visiting blood bank. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey conducted on 109 blood donors visiting blood bank in the month of March–April 2020. Data were collected using structured knowledge questionnaire and expressed practice checklist. After collecting data, the donors were provided with information related to COVID-19, and its precautions as per the guidelines from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India. The obtained data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 22. Results: In terms of knowledge, it was found that 51.3% donors had very good knowledge, 42.3% had good knowledge, whereas 6.4% donors had poor knowledge about COVID-19. With regard to practices related to COVID precautions, it was noticed that most (90.82%) of the donors followed best practices, 9.18% donors followed good practices, whereas none of the donor followed poor practices. A significant positive correlation (P ≤ 0.01) was found between knowledge and practice score of blood donors. Significant association was seen in knowledge with educational status (P = 0.003) and practice with place of residence (P = 0.010). Conclusion: Based on the findings, it was concluded that 51.3% donors had very good knowledge, whereas 6.4% donors had poor knowledge about COVID-19. With regard to the practices related to COVID precautions, most (90.82%) of the donors followed best practices, 9.18% donors followed good practices, whereas none of the donor followed poor practices. Hence, the health-care professionals must take active steps to disseminate correct and updated information to blood donors regarding COVID-19 and related precautions.
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