Knowledge, attitude and practice on blood donation among adults aged 18 - 28 years attending Kasangati health centre IV, Wakiso district.

Abstract

Introduction Blood is important for all living organism. Its importance is more felt in the treatment of sick human for different conditions such as treatment of Immuno-suppressed patients as seen in cancer and HIV patients, surgery, accident, delivery cases and treatment of different diseases. Never the less there is no substitute for blood and we can say that blood is natural gift for patients in need of it because they can not survive without it. Blood transfusion is increasingly in use in medical science as it plays life-saving role in the treatment of thousands of patients daily. Objectives To investigate level of knowledge, attitudes and practice on blood donation among adults aged 18 – 28 attending kasangati Health Centre IV, Wakiso. Methodology A structured validated questionnaire was administered to 384 participants aged 18-28 years using systematic random sampling in Kasangati Health Centre IV, Wakiso. The questionnaire comprised of parts on knowledge, attitude and practice of blood donation. Results Generally there was knowledge gap on blood donation as seen with majority of the respondents on part of education had stopped on primary level (32%) which clearly shows that knowledge on blood donation being directly proportional to the education levels seems to be reasonable since education would also increase awareness about all possible information including that related to blood donation. The attitude of the respondents towards blood donation in the study was good seen with the evidence that 53.7% agreed to always donate blood. The practiced on the blood donation was directly related to knowledge gap among the respondents though majority willing to starting donating blood. Conclusion Blood collection in blood bank in Uganda is in most case got from students of university and secondary going and for that matter good knowledge about blood donation practices is not changing in donating blood. The lack of awareness and misconceptions concerning donation may contribute to poor attitudes towards blood donation, however in the higher education, younger aged people and sensitization of the health care providers will greatly increase on the number blood collected and increase the number of donors.