%0 Journal Article
%T Assessing Acceptability of Short Message Service Based Interventions towards Becoming Future Voluntary Blood Donors
%A Sana Saleem
%A Anum Wasim
%A Sidra Sabih
%A Ayisha Farooq Khan
%A Madiha Hasan Rizvi
%A Umaima Ayesha Jillani
%A Mujtaba Jamal Syed
%A Madiha Mumtaz
%A Yasmeen Mumtaz
%A Abdul Moid Shehzad
%A Om Dawani
%A Saima Khan
%A Sheheryar Munir
%A Nava Asad
%A Abdul Nafey Kazi
%J Journal of Blood Transfusion
%D 2014
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2014/567697
%X All blood bank services, especially those of developing countries, face a major shortfall of blood donations due to lack of voluntary blood donors. Our study aims to evaluate the acceptability of Short Message Service based interventions towards becoming voluntary blood donors among medical university students of Karachi, Pakistan. Methods. A total of 350 medical students were approached in medical universities of Karachi, Pakistan, using a nonprobability convenient sampling technique. Data collectors administered a self-made questionnaire to each participant using an interview based format. All data was recorded and analyzed on SPSS 16. Results. 350 participants, having a mean age of 21.47 ¡À 1.36, were included in our study with 30.6% (107/350) being males and 69.4% (243/350) being females. 93.4% (327/350) of participants agreed that donating blood was healthy, but only 26% had donated blood in the past with 79.1% donating voluntarily. 65.7% (230/350) of the participants agreed to take part in Short Message Service based behavioral interventions to become voluntary blood donors with 69.7% (244/350) also agreeing that Short Message Service reminders will promote them to donate blood more often. Conclusion. With university students willing to become voluntary blood donors, Pakistani blood banks can carry out Short Message Service based interventions to encourage them to donate blood. 1. Introduction The continuous major challenge faced by all blood services worldwide is the huge demand-supply gap between blood donors and patients [1]. Although blood donation forms an integral component of medical services, only 92 million blood donations were made to an estimated 234 million major operations performed in 2013 [2]. Developing countries, like Pakistan, experience an even greater crisis, owing to the high incidence of transfusion-requiring medical conditions like high risk obstetrics, thalassemia, trauma, and malaria. In Pakistan, only 28 people donate blood for every population of 10000 [3]. Replacement donors and paying for donations contribute significantly to Pakistani blood banks that in turn promotes high risk collection of seropositive infectious blood as opposed to the low risk blood products obtained from voluntary donors [4]. In 2012, an estimated 70% donations were replacement or paid for donations with 50% cases receiving unscreened blood transfusions [5]. Recruitment of low risk voluntary blood donors is a primary solution of replenishing this shortfall in blood banks [6]. University student populations, medical university students in
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jbt/2014/567697/