Knowledge and attitude towards blood donation in educated and illiterate blood donors attending a tertiary care hospital in Lahore

Aim: To assess the knowledge and attitude of educated and illiterate blood donors visited a tertiary care paediatric institute for blood donation. Methods: The present cross-sectional study was held from June 2016 to December 2016 on 246 blood donors through a structured survey questionnaire. The collected data checked for its accuracy, consistency and completeness before analysis. Results: Total population of this study comprises of 246 blood donors, 188(76.4%) of which educated and 58(23.6%) were illiterate. There were 239(97.2%) males and 7(2.8%) females in this study. The overall knowledge on blood donation was highest among educated blood donors (91.7%) and lowest among illiterate blood donors (73.2%). Similar results obtained for positive attitude for the blood donation of educated (97.1%) and illiterate (76.7%) blood donors. Conclusion: This study confirms that motivation to donate blood was higher amongst the blood donor with more knowledge and positive attitude towards blood donation. The awareness and knowledge have a significant impact on blood donation in general population.