New blood donors in times of crisis: Increased donation willingness, particularly among people at high risk for attracting SARS-CoV-2

Vaccine-incentivized blood donation: A survey of public perceptions in Canada

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Canadian blood donations declined during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversely, vaccine demand outpaced supply during the initial stages of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Canada. This study investigates public perceptions regarding vaccine-incentivized blood donation, among COVID-19 and future pandemics, in Canada.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A 19-question survey was developed and distributed in person and online to Canadians during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were asked questions about demographics, blood donation eligibility, previous donations and sentiments towards vaccine-incentivized blood donation. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

In total, 787 respondents completed the survey with representation from all sexes, ages, races, locations of residence and work employment. Overall, 176 (22%) participants self-identified as working or living in healthcare settings, 511 (65%) were currently able to donate blood products, 247 (31%) previously donated blood and 48 (6%) donated blood during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the exception of ineligible blood donors, many Canadians, particularly previous blood donors, were agreeable with this incentivization proposal. Many participants claimed they would donate blood products for vaccines during COVID-19 and future pandemics but raised concerns about the equitableness of such approach.

CONCLUSION

Vaccine-incentivized blood donation was viewed positively by many Canadians in our study. Future research must investigate the equity and feasibility of this strategy. In the interim, further strategies should be explored to encourage blood donation in Canada.

Perception of blood donation among employees of healthcare organizations during COVID-19 pandemic: A national multicenter cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Maintaining a safe and adequate blood supply during a crisis is a major challenge facing blood banks around the world. With the recent global COVID-19 crisis and the enforced "stay at home" lockdown, access to blood donors was limited. Since employees of healthcare facilities may act as potential blood donors, their perception of blood donation and their willingness to donate during the pandemic period is important to be assessed.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHOD

A national cross-sectional study at six centers in Saudi Arabia was conducted using an online-based questionnaire that was distributed to all healthcare employees in these facilities between June and August 2020.

RESULTS

Among the total of 1664 participants, 63.2% (n = 1051) did not donate blood during the last 2 years. However, 53% (n = 882) of participants reported they are likely to donate blood during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, 85% (n = 1424) did not donate blood during the current pandemic, with the biggest worries of getting the COVID-19 infection in the donor center. The main concerns of participants were about adherence to physical distancing requirements and the safety of the donation procedure. The majority of health care participants (88.2%) support implementing a hospital policy for a voluntary blood donation by employees during crises.

CONCLUSION

Recruitment of more blood donors among health care employees is a feasible solution to improve the blood supply during a crisis. This should be based on efforts throughout the year including regular awareness campaigns and effective communication.

How to increase first-time donors' returns? The postdonation letter's content can make a difference

Background

Retention of first‐time donors is pivotal for blood collection centers. The present study built on research showing the importance of donor identity among regular donors and sought to compare the effectiveness of various communication strategies on return rate.

Study Design and Methods

Postal letters were sent to a large sample of first‐time whole blood donors (N = 1219) a few weeks following their first donation. Four versions of this letter were differently constructed in a way to boost the acquisition of donor identity (i.e., by including information about their ABO and Rh(D) blood group, emphasizing the salience of donor identity, offering a keyring with personalized information, or specifying the percentage of those sharing the same ABO and Rh(D) blood group). One version with no identity‐related information served as a control condition. Participants' subsequent blood donations were tracked for 5–22 months after receiving the letter.

Results

Survival analysis showed that the return rate was significantly higher among those who had received information about the percentage of the country's population with the same ABO and Rh(D) blood group (in comparison with the four other versions). There was no significant effect on the blood type rarity.

Conclusion

Blood collection centers could orient the strategy employed to communicate with first‐time donors to improve donors' retention. Arousing a sense of social identification with others with the same blood type may reveal a promising avenue.

Out of the shadows: Impact of SARS experience on Chinese netizens' willingness to donate for COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control

While charitable donations help to raise funds and contribute to pandemic prevention and control, there are many unanswered questions about how people make such donation decisions, especially in countries like China where charitable donations have played an increasing role in recent years. This study contributes to the literature by assessing the potential impacts of Chinese netizens' experience with the 2002 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic on their willingness to donate for COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control. Specifically, this study applies a difference-in-differences (DID) model to a dataset collected from a nationwide survey to examine how individuals' exposure to the SARS epidemic affects their willingness to donate to alleviate the COVID-19 pandemic. The results suggest that individuals' SARS epidemic experiences in their early lives, especially during the "childhood-adolescence" period, had a lasting and far-reaching impact on their willingness to donate toward COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control. Also, the impacts were likely heterogeneous by such sociodemographic factors as educational background, health status, and income level. The empirical findings highlight the importance of considering early-life experiences in developing and implementing epidemic prevention and control policies. While the SARS experience likely affected Chinese netizens' willingness to donate toward COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control, lessons learned from both the SARS epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic could be used to develop more effective public health education and prevention programs as well as to increase public donations for future pandemic prevention and control.

The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations

During a crisis, society calls for individuals to take prosocial actions that promote crisis management. Indeed, individuals show higher willingness to help after a disaster. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents significant differences as it is an ongoing crisis that affects all individuals and has the potential to pose a direct health threat to anyone. Therefore, we propose that the pandemic may also negatively affect willingness to help, specifically blood donation intentions. It requires a high level of willingness to donate blood beyond the crisis outbreak, as more blood will be needed when postponed surgeries resume. When comparing blood donation intentions from a pre-pandemic study to results from a six-wave (bi-weekly) panel study conducted in Germany during the first pandemic phase (April to June 2020), we find lower medium and long-term blood donation intentions. While active donors show increased awareness of ability and eligibility to donate at the beginning of the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic, they feel significantly less able to donate as the pandemic progresses. Furthermore, inactive donors’ perceived ability to donate significantly decreases in the pandemic phase compared to the pre-pandemic phase. Crucially, both active and inactive donors feel less responsible and less morally obliged to donate, resulting in an overall negative pandemic effect on blood donation intentions. The COVID-19 pandemic compromises blood donations endangering the life-saving blood supply. These alarming results offer evidence-based grounds for practical implications for driving donations in the event of a pandemic.

Donor's Perspectives on Blood Donation During Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic had affected transfusion services including recruitment of donors and blood donation camps activities. The blood donors may have concerns, confusion, and misleading rumours about blood donation during pandemic. People's priorities for blood donation may shift because of a dearth of necessities. It is important to identify factors which prevent or motivate blood donors during pandemic. This study was designed to understand blood donors' knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions during the Covid-19 pandemic. A descriptive cross-sectional study to assess donor’s knowledge, attitude, and perception regarding blood donation using self-administered 20 questions. The study duration was 4 months. A total 503 whole blood donors participated. The fear of infection and reduced blood donor motivation were observed to be the major deterrents of blood donation activity. Environment of blood donation area and travel to blood donation site were perceived two major sources of Covid-19 infection by participants. The top 3 motivational factor for blood donation were direct patient request to donate (30%), followed by family/ friends need and social media campaigns (26% each). Most donors (70.6%) were aware of importance of Covid-19 appropriate behaviour during current pandemic. The 67% donors felt that adequate Covid-19 preventive measures had been followed by the staff involved in blood collection. Based on the survey results, the inferences are that donors may harbour fear of infection and concerns for their safety, deterring blood donation. The direct appeal from a patient's relative to donate blood or a requirement in their family/friends and social media appeals emerge important factors to motivate donors. Travel facility arrangement may aide blood donation. Most of the donors are more than satisfied with the blood donation experience and are motivated to inform the transfusion services of any appearance of Covid-19 symptoms post donation. The donors were satisfied with the steps to reduce Covid-19 infection.

Motivation, blood donor satisfaction and intention to return during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background and Objectives

This study aimed to describe motives as well as donation experiences and the intention to return for further donations of German whole blood donors who donated at the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Materials and Methods

To describe motives and donor experiences, a retrospective survey was conducted among whole blood donors that had a donation appointment at the German Red Cross Blood Donation Service in the first 4 weeks of the pandemic. A donor questionnaire including 17 retrospective questions was sent to 7500 donors. Donor motivation and donor experiences were compared for different donor groups using chi‐square statistics. Finally, in an ordinal logistic regression model predictors for the intention to return were identified.

Results

More than half of the participating donors (56.9%) wanted to contribute to the fight against the pandemic by donating blood. Most of the donors were satisfied with their last donation experience and felt safe during the blood donor appointment. However, some donors would have liked more information on how to deal with the pandemic (20.3%). Intention to return for further donations was strongly associated with overall satisfaction (OR: 1.67, CI: 1.47–1.90) and the feeling of being safe during blood donation (OR: 1.33, CI: 1.05–1.68).

Conclusion

Donor satisfaction with the last donation was high and the vast majority of donors felt very safe. However, those donors who felt unsafe expressed a low intention to return and blood donation services should therefore carefully monitor donor satisfaction.

Blood Donation Narratives on Social Media: A Topic Modeling Study

Social media have shown great potential for producing significant changes in behavior and have become the cornerstone for many public health and agency efforts. The nonprofit sector -including blood collection agencies- has adopted social media to aid their cause and reach their goals. However, despite the tremendous impact of social media on society and its promising role for donor recruitment and retention, it has been overlooked in donor research. This study therefore sought to map the social media landscape around blood donation. We showcase an inductive computational method to make sense of vast amounts of dynamic unstructured blood donation text data that exists on social media. With this method, we display what is discussed about blood donation on social media, how these topics are distributed on Facebook and Twitter, and how the prevalence of these topics changes over time. We applied structural topic modeling on 7 years of Dutch blood donation Facebook and Twitter data by the general public. We found 25 topics clustered in 6 distinct clusters. Over time, there is a substantial reduction of messages in which donors announce their donations. Topics that emphasize the positives of blood donation, including donor identity-related topics, are rising. In addition, the findings show a clear social media platform contrast. Topics related to campaigns and controversial policies were found more on Twitter and positive donation topics and topics related to the donation process more on Facebook. To make optimal use of social media for recruitment and retention campaigns and efforts, blood collection agencies should recognize the turbulent environment in which they take place. Monitoring public opinions about blood donation will help blood collection agencies make strategic choices and utilize social media more effectively.