Profile of blood donors and reasons for deferral in coastal South India

BackgroundA blood transfusion is a life-saving procedure in manyinstances. An adequate supply of safe blood is ensured byexercising donor deferral criteria and screening forTransfusion Transmitted Infections (TTI). The aim of thispaper is to study the profile of blood donors and reasons fordonor deferral in coastal South India.MethodThe study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital inMangalore. All those who donated between 1 January 2008and 31 December 2008 were included in the study. Datawas collected using a pre-tested semi-structured proformaand analysed using SPSS version 11.5.ResultsMost of the donors were under the age of 25 (42.92%).Donors were predominantly male (95.20%). In terms ofoccupation, most subjects were students (28.01%) followedby businessmen (18.61%). Slightly more than three-quartersof the donors (77.20%) were replacement donors. The mainreasons for deferral were consumption of medication in thepast 72 hours (15.15%), hypertension (13.18%), a lowhaemoglobin level (12.34%) and alcohol intake in the past72 hours (12.20%). Among the TTIs identified, most sampleswere positive for Hepatitis B surface Antigen – HBsAg(0.87%) or tested positive for Anti-Hepatitis C (HCVantibodies (0.36%).ConclusionFrom the study it was concluded that the majority of thedonor population was young and educated. The reason fordonation was mainly replacement rather than voluntary.This issue needs to be addressed by exercising proactivemeasures to increase the number of voluntary, nonremunerated,low-risk donors.