Analysis of blood donor deferral pattern: Scenario in a Tertiary Health Care Hospital in India

Sadhana Mangwana

doi:10.4103/0973-6247.115595

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Year : 2013 | Volume : 7 | Issue : 2 | Page : 160-161

Analysis of blood donor deferral pattern: Scenario in a Tertiary Health Care Hospital in India

Sadhana Mangwana
Department of Blood Transfusion Services, Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute, Paschim Vihar, New Delhi, India

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Date of Web Publication

25-Jul-2013

How to cite this article:
Mangwana S. Analysis of blood donor deferral pattern: Scenario in a Tertiary Health Care Hospital in India. Asian J Transfus Sci 2013;7:160-1

How to cite this URL:
Mangwana S. Analysis of blood donor deferral pattern: Scenario in a Tertiary Health Care Hospital in India. Asian J Transfus Sci [serial online] 2013 [cited 2023 Mar 22];7:160-1. Available from: https://www.ajts.org/text.asp?2013/7/2/160/115595

Sir,

Paucity of healthy safe donors has always been a serious problem for blood banks all over the world.To quantify the losses due to deferred donors and to understand the rate, reasons and problems of donor population coming to private, tertiary care hospital, a record-based study was conducted encompassing three and half years (1 Jan 2007-30 June 2010). During this period, 22404 potential donors were screened, of which 19005 (82.12%) were successful donors. Demographic profile of donors is shown in [Table 1]. 3399 donors were found to be unfit giving an overall incidence of 17.88%. Of the total deferrals, 2705 (79.58%) were male donors and 694 were female donors (20.42%) [Table 2].

Table 1: Demographic profile of the donors

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Table 2: Gender wise deferrals

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Deferral incidence of 17.88% was similar to other studies. ^[1],[2],[3] However, study by Rabeya et al ^[4] showed low incidence (5.6%) and Charles et al ^[5] showed deferral incidence of as high as 35.6%, signifying that rate of deferral may not change whether donors are regular volunteers or replacement donors.

Reasons of deferrals are shown in [Table 3]. Low hemoglobin was the leading cause of total deferrals and in female donors (68.01% in female donors versus 14.82% in male donors), followed by history of medication, hypertension. and alcohol consumption (common in men) implying that deferral in female donors due to anemia is nearly 4.6 times higher than in male donors; a finding similar to other studies ^[1],[3],[4] emphasizing that a sizeable population, especially female donors in this part of world is anemic reflecting the impact of low socioeconomic status on health. Effects are needed to address the issue of anemia in prospective donors at all levels Health of blood donors can be improved by educating and motivating them to seek necessary guidance for anemia. Simultaneously, adolescents and youth should be targeted for eradication of anemia by different, yet coordinated initiatives. The most common cause of permanent deferral was hypertension (15.76%).

Table 3: Reasons of deferrals

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On comparing deferral rates in various quarters of the year between 2007 and 2009, deferral rate was lowest (16.98%) in 1 ^st quarter with highest (32.55%) in the 3 ^rd quarter signifying that community health was good in 1 ^st quarter, whereas 3 ^rd quarter; being the rainy season, health of community seems to be at its lowest level due to sizeable number of water-borne diseases leading to temporary deferrals; a finding not observed by any other worker in the past which needs to be further evaluated.

As anemia, history of medication, and alcohol are causes of temporary deferral (63.21%), deferred donors can be recruited back into the donor pool. Deferral due to history of alcohol consumption accounted to 15.0% of total deferrals; a finding not observed by any other worker in the past making the reason as 4 ^th commonest cause.

To conclude, analysis of rejection patterns will help medical personnel to be more focused on donor screening so that donors deferred due to temporary reasons like anemia, history of medication, and alcohol consumption can be recruited in donor registry after managing temporary reasons. Thus, effective measures need to be initiated to address the issues like lost donors and retention, and registry of perspective donors.

References

1.	Bahadur S, Jain S, Goel RK, Pahuja S, Jain M. Analysis of blood donor deferral characteristics in Delhi, India. Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health 2009;40:1087-91. [PUBMED]
2.	Chaudhary RK, Gupta D, Gupta RK. Analysis of donor-deferral pattern in a voluntary blood donor population. Transfus Med 1995;5:209-12. [PUBMED]
3.	Agnihotri N. Whole blood donor deferral analysis at a center in Western India. Asian J Transfus Sci 2010;4:116-22. [PUBMED]
4.	Rabeya Y, Rapiaah M, Rosline H, Ahmed SA, Zaidah WA, Roshan TM. Blood pre-donation deferrals-a teaching hospital experience. Southeast Asian J Trop Med Public Health 2008;39:571-4. [PUBMED]
5.	Charles KS, Hughes P, Gadd R, Bodkyn CJ, Rodriguez M. Evaluation of blood donor deferral causes in the Trinidad and Tobago National Blood Transfusion Service. Transfus Med 2010;20:11-4. [PUBMED]