Regular repetitive voluntary blood donors: What're their characteristics ?

Sir,

Blood donation is the beginning step for blood transfusion. The requirement of blood is still high around the world at present. The most acceptable means to get blood is voluntary blood donation. There are many reports showing several factors associated with blood donation practice. The correlation between attitude and practice is confirmed.[1] There are also some reports on the factors promoting and preventing repetitive blood donation. Mathew et al. stated that encouraging previous donors to return was important for to increasing collections of donated blood.[2] Nguyen et al. stated that medical testing was the most highly rated incentive for repetitive donations, followed by frequent donor programs and convenient donation times and locations.[3] Here, the author tried to reanalyze the characteristics of regular repetitive blood donors, continuous donation for more than five times, in a rural setting of Thailand. The setting is Bang Sapan District, Prachuab Kiri Khan Province, Thailand, where good attitude of local people to voluntary blood donation was reported.[1] The data on the blood donation record on the repetitive donors was also reviewed and studied for the demographic parameters. All subjects were previously tested for the attitude level to blood donation.[1] The author found that there are 35 (25 males and 10 females) repetitive blood donors in this settings. All are aged between 20 and 45 years old. The education levels of all subjects are between primary (28) to secondary school (7). Classified for attitude level of this subjects using the previously published tool, all had good attitude to donation. Therefore, there is no correlation between demographic parameters (sex, age or education levels) and blood donation practice. Although there are many confirmations that education is the main factor indicating the donation practice in general populations it might not be the factor determining the regular repetitive donation.[14] Of interest, a Buddhist monk is identified to be the one who practice the most frequent blood donation. Indeed, the donation is a rooted belief and religious practice in Buddhism.[5]