A study on attitude towards blood donation among people in a rural district, Thailand.

Abstract

Blood and blood components are important in many situations. At present, there is only a donation system for blood banks to get blood in Thailand. Although the blood bank process has been founded in Thailand for many years, there is still an insufficient amount of blood for use. There are misguided attitudes on blood donation among the people in the rural areas. This study has been designed as a cross-sectional descriptive study to study attitude towards blood donation among the people in Bang Sapan District, Prachuab Kiri Khan Province, Thailand. Data from self-administered questionnaires were collected and statistical analysis was performed. We found that people in that area had a rather good attitude but this was still found in less than 50%. We found the attitude of the subjects only significantly correlated with the level of education. We concluded that improving the people's attitude on blood donation is important. We suggest that every blood bank should design a program for providing knowledge in order to improve the attitude of the people in that area. We also suggest that knowledge on blood donation should be repeatedly taught at any education level including the school system. This study can provided preliminary results for other studies.