Introduction
Almost every American has gotten
the phone call, but do all Americans listen? The blood bank seeks anybody who
is willing to donate blood for the millions of people in need, but more often
than not there’s more people in need of blood than there are of people willing to
donate. Blood is always in high demand; it’s as simple as that. Everyday there
are thousands of individuals who are in need of a blood transfusion due to illnesses
that can’t be cured, mishaps during surgery, and unexpected accidents. The lack
of supply has been an ongoing issue for years, and will continue to be if more
people don’t see how donating blood is literally gifting someone another chance
at life. There is no shortcut or easy way around it-
the only way to meet this high demand is if people donate. It’s time for people
to understand that donating blood goes beyond the needle, donating blood means
saving people’s lives.
Evidence Based Research
In 2006 a study was conducted in Edinburgh, UK by Chris McVittie, Lisa Harris, and Niko Tiliopoulos, to try and explain the reasoning behind why people are hesitant to donate. 23 active donors and 27 non-donors were recruited to take a questionnaire about donating blood. The participants were allowed a time limit of one week to complete the survey which comprised of 15 open-ended questions so the participants could respond freely (McVittie, Harris, & Tiliopoulos, 2006). After the questionnaires were collected and reviewed, if some were found “information rich” (McVittie et al., 2006) , they were called in to be interviewed for one hour in order to expand on their responses.
The results comprised of five themes among donors and non-donors, but two specific themes for non-donors, “anxiety and practical difficulties” (McVittie et al., 2006). Many non-donors responded to the idea of donating blood with anxiety because of the fear of not knowing how the blood donation process worked. They stated there was not enough information on the process of blood donation and that seeing “a demonstration right from the beginning” (McVittie et al., 2006) might have eased their anxiety. Another reason was the fear of contracting a disease. Many of the participants feared they would be infected with AIDS or hepatitis. A final reason was negative past experiences regarding blood in general. Such as a bad memory, or being uncomfortable around the sight of blood (McVittie et al., 2006). The second theme, practical difficulties, comprised of lack of information such as not knowing where to donate, and not knowing how to look up information on blood donation, and lack of time (McVittie et al., 2006). These may not be all the reasons people do not donate blood, but were recurring themes among the research participants. With the identification of these themes, necessary steps can be taken to accommodate anxiety and practical difficulties. It is important for organizations to be familiar with the fears and apprehensions that donors may have and address them. In the next two research studies, experiments were conducted to test whether certain methods could alleviate the problem of lack of donors, and draw more people to blood banks.
In 2013 a study was done by Marius Mews from the University of Hamburg, Germany, to test if monetary incentives would get more people to donate. Germany is different from the United States in that they have organizations that pay people to donate, and organizations that do not. Even though organizations are offering money its not the actual motive for most donors (Mews, 2013). In the experiment, Mews described a service bundle for blood donors. It consisted of four levels, the type of organization offering blood donation services, monetary incentives, the amount of time to donate, and the distance to the donation location (Mews, 2013). The experiment was conducted to see what aspects of the service bundle were most appealing to possible donors. Participants were given a questionnaire and asked how they liked each level of the bundle on a scale of 1-7, and then rate the importance of each level on a scale of 1-5. Each participant was then presented with different combinations of the levels and asked which one they would choose (Mews, 2013).
The results of the experiment found that monetary incentive was identified as the most appealing aspect of the service bundle. Second was the distance to the donation location (Mews, 2013). To the participants in the study, being paid for donating blood was important instead of donating freely. But what was also surprising was the distance to the donation location center and being able to easily access a route to donate blood. With this information, organizations who can afford to provide monetary incentive, can attract donors to donate blood. But for those who can not, going to donors is important, for example using donation buses, or creating pop up donation locations in various places. With the results of this experiment organizations can provide different routes or implement different policies to attract donors. The last research study provides another possible method to attract donors.
In 2013 an experiment in the Netherlands was done to see if implementing a survey about donating blood would change peoples behavior and convince them to donate. The experiment was based on the question-behavior effect, that answering certain questions could change someone's mind and then there actions. By answering questions about what we can do versus what we should do can make participants want to take action (Dongen, Abraham, Ruiter, & Veldhuizen, 2013), in this case, to donate blood. One method that was implemented was donors in the Netherlands donor database were randomly assigned to receive or not receive a survey within a certain interval of time. The types of questions asked were how they felt about blood donation, if they were already a donor, what was their intention, their morals, and other questions (Dongen et al., 2013). After six months they were contacted to see if they had donated blood. The results of the study showed that there was no increase in blood donation after receiving the survey and frequency of blood donation remained the same. This experiment reveals that the question-behavior effect does not convince more people to donate.
After reviewing the last two studies that explained possible methods to increase blood donation, lack of appropriate information, and convenience were identified as important issues to donors. The studies stressed providing the appropriate information on how blood donation works and being able to provide a convenient way for people to donate whether it be mobile blood bank or other methods. These are just a few ways in which healthcare industries all over the world are trying to encourage blood donation to help save the lives.
Conclusion
The promise of the cutting edge research that we
have examined is that career researchers have taken the initiative to
continuously find ways to help promote the importance of donating blood. It is
clear that there is a shortage of blood all over the world yet people are unaware
of the impact that donating blood can make. With the help of this research,
further investigations can be executed in order to bring awareness to the
issue. We have learned that two problem have risen due to blood donation- one
being that people are misinformed, and two- people fear the unknowns of
donating blood. If organizations are willing to put monetary funds into
campaigns in order to remedy these misconceptions, this can encourage people to
realize the vitality of donating blood. It’s not just up to the organizations,
however, it’s up to the people to help share their experience and values in
regards to helping people find comfort and solution to saving someone’s life. With
that being said, are you ready to take the needle to save the people?
References
Dongen, A. V., Abraham, C., Ruiter R. A. C., & Veldhuizen, I. J. T. (2013). Does questionnaire distribution promote blood donation? An investigation of question-behavior effects. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 45, 163-172.
McVittie, C., Harris, L., & Tiliopoulos, N. (2006). “I intend to donate but…”: Non-donors’ view of blood donation in the UK. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 11, 1-6.
Mews, M. (2013). To pay or not to pay-the role of monetary incentives in an optimal blood donation service bundle. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 18, 192-202.
