Blood Center/Blood Hospital-Based Donor Center
Samantha G. Ngamsuntikul, MD
BioBridge Global
San Antonio, Texas, United States
Nationwide, blood collectors struggle with getting enough donors. Blood collectors are looking for ways recruit new, younger donors while maintaining current donors. To improve donor engagement our center added the donor motivation question “What brought you in to donate today?” to the donor history questionnaire with the following choices provided: I want to help the community; My blood type is needed; Donating blood makes me feel good; Because someone I know needs blood; Because I once needed blood; The need was shared on social media; The need was shared on the local news; There are patients in need due to a recent event; and Other.
Study
Design/Methods:
Beginning on August 1, 2023, the motivation question was added to our donor history questionnaire. This question is required and only one option can be selected. Data was pulled from our blood establishment computer system (BECS) to assess donor responses and since a donor’s motivation can change over time, each unique donation was recorded with the associated motivation answer.
Results/Findings: Since addition of the question, our center has had a total of 97,780 responses. Table 1 shows the responses stratified by age and gender. The data show that for donors aged 23 or older, “I want to help the community” and “My blood type is needed” are the 2 most common responses for both male and female donors. In the 16 to 22 years age group, “I want to help the community” is still first but “other” is the second most common response in both males and females. Another trend is the response “Donating blood makes me feel good” increases in males and females over their lifespan, becoming the third most common response in donors over 60.
Conclusions: Identifying donor motivation reason is important in donor recruitment. The majority of our donors donate to help the community and because their blood type is needed. A refinement to our question to allow a free text response for “other” could further elucidate our youngest donor’s motivations.