Background: Blood donation is a unique act to save the lives of people who face serious surgical and medical conditions. Since the request for blood supply is too high, there is a shortage of blood which causes significant morbidity and mortality. To increase blood supply and maintain adequate quantity of blood, regular and volunteer blood donation practice is needed. Ethiopia is one of the lowest annual donation rates which is 0.8/1000 population. This study assesses factors affecting willingness to donate blood among Hawassa town southern Population.
Objectives: To assess the factors affecting willingness to blood donation among Hawassa town population Southern, Ethiopia.
Methods: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted in Hawassa town in November 2020. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select study population. At Stage one, three Kebele are selected from total 32 Kebele, at stage two using systematical sampling method used to draw the total sample size, proportional to the population of each kebele and each study units are selected randomly from Each household. Data was collected using structured interviewer questionnaire. Data entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20.
Result: A total of 633 participants were included in the final analysis (response rate = 100%). Among which 212(33.5%) was Female and 421 (66.5%) were Male. The mean age was 30.95 ±2.0 years. Among the study participants, 490(77.4) are willing to donate blood in the future and 125(22.9%) of them had blood donation practices in the past. The most prominent factors that affect willingness of participant for blood donation was, Unfit to donate, fear of needle prick and Not approached to donate (45.2%,38.5% and 11.7%) respectively. Majority of the respondents 382 (60.3%) reported that voluntary donor is the best source of safe blood. Desire to help other and age of study Participant age greater 25 years are significantly associated factor for increased willingness to blood donation (AOR 2.146 (0.028, 0.753) and (AOR = 1.8 (95% CI 1.1, 3.0) respectively.
Conclusion: Only minor proportion of the participants donate blood in the past, but Majority of the participant was willing to donate blood in the future. The major factors that participant not willing to donate blood are Unfit to donate, fear of needle prick and Not approached to donate. There is a need to improve awareness on who and when a person able to donate a blood and organizing campaign to increase awareness on important of blood donation for those who are willing to donate blood in the future, to create a pool of eligible blood donors.