Turkish university students' opinions towards blood donation

Abstract

University students constitute an important cohort for the supplement of voluntary blood donation considering their age and dynamism. With this study, it is aimed to find out Turkish university students' positive and negative opinions towards blood donation in addition to interpreting their motivators and barriers to this issue. For this reason, a qualitative study was conducted with a total of 141 students studying in one of the governmental universities in the west part of Turkey. Data were collected with the help of a semi-structured interview form which involved 10 questions and analyzed by means of content analysis. As a result, it was determined that university students possessed insufficient knowledge and misconceptions related to blood donation. Also, more than half of the students were found to not donate blood before. Being sensible was the most frequent reason stated by the students for donating blood. On the other hand, anemia was the main reason of not donating blood for females and fear was the main reason for males. In the light of the findings, it is thought that focusing on factors such as Red Crescent blood collection vehicle, blood collection stands at the university campuses and positive effects on health might play important role to turn university students into voluntary regular donors.