Volume : III, Issue : I, January - 2014

Blood donation among Adolescents – Motivation,Obstacles and Encouragement Strategies

P. Lavanya Kumari

Abstract :

Blood the fluid of life is RED regardless of the race or belief or colour. The ready availability of Blood of all kinds during emergency can save lives. Adolescents are a potential source of great interest, not only for the blood they could supply, but also because information on the subject “giving blood” could promote the spread of healthy lifestyles, acquisition of greater awareness about one’s own health, and contribute to the development of a mature, responsible civic attitude. This paper aims at not only finding motivational factors among blood donors and common obstacles they experience while blood donation despite their great intention to donate blood but also in suggesting the encouragement strategies to promote new donors among adolescents. A survey on 300 adolescents evident that their representations highlighted altruistic aspects at the expense of egoistic ones and self-affirmation, but seemed to be drawn more from the imagination than from a real knowledge of donors. Interestingly, the students reported being afraid of needles or being unwell or fainting after the blood donation process whereas only 16% of the students did not perceive any practical obstacle to donate blood. The data concerning factors facilitating donation confirm the idea that the students need to have simple, concrete information, perhaps obtained by going to see how a Transfusion Centre works, before deciding; a fairly clear encouragement seemed to be the possibility of giving blood with someone who has already done so (42%). Students while talking on the characteristics of a good promotional campaign, the suggestions were in favour of two key elements: a thought-provoking message that is simple and clear; all the other visual elements play a secondary role.

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Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijsr  

Cite This Article:

P.Lavanya Kumari Blood donation among Adolescents – Motivation, Obstacles and Encouragement Strategies International Journal of Scientific Research, Vol.III, Issue.I January 2014

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