Motivational factors for blood donation in first-time donors and repeat donors: a cross-sectional study in West Pomerania

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to analyse motivational factors for blood donation in different donor groups.

Background: As the demographic change will result in a decrease of the population in age groups of blood donors, the risk of blood product shortage increases.

Methods: During a 12-month period, every sixth blood donor presenting at the blood donation centre of the University Hospital was asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire assessing motivational factors for blood donation. Despite the formalised enrolment protocol, frequent donors were over-represented in the study cohort, which was adjusted by weighting donors with different numbers of donations per year in such a way that the distribution of numbers of donations per year was the same in the sample as in the donor population.

Results: Of 2443 participants, 14·3% were first-time and 85·3% repeat donors. To "help other people" (>90%) and receiving "medical assessment of my blood values" (63-69%) were the strongest motivational factors in all donor groups. Receiving remuneration (49·2% vs 38·1%) was more important for repeat donors than for first-time donors, whereas it was the opposite for "being taken by a friend to the donor clinic" (47·0% vs 15·5%). A potentially important observation is that 33·9% of frequent donors reported feeling physically better after blood donation compared to infrequent donors (29·5%).

Conclusion: Identification of motivational factors can lead to the design of targeted motivation campaigns for blood donation. The underlying cause of the perceived well-being after blood donation requires further studies.

Keywords: blood donation; first-time donor; motivation; repeat donor; well-being.