Blood donation knowledge and attitude in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Background: Currently, there is a shortage of an adequate supply of blood and blood products due to the unavailability of voluntary, non-remunerated donors from low-risk populations. Therefore, it is important to address the reasons for the unavailability of blood donors in order to increase recruitment. Aim: This study determined the level of knowledge and attitude in the wider Saudi Arabian population towards blood donation. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted using an online questionnaire between Novembers 2021 and October 2022. Results: Of the 1506 individuals, only 17.9% were donors, of whom 11.2% had donated blood before. Through analysing the knowledge score, 81.9% of participants possessed knowledge regarding the necessity of screening a donation for infections and 90.5% positively confirmed that the HIV virus could be spread through the blood donation route, however, they were not familiar with other infections, such as syphilis. With regards to the levels of attitude, 74.2% of respondents strongly agreed on raising awareness of the importance of blood donation, whilst 54.2% strongly agreed that the availability of mobile blood donation centres would increase the level of donation drastically. Conclusions: Although the study showed that respondents were aware of certain factors regarding blood donation, there was an insufficiency of knowledge and attitudes regarding blood donation. This finding highlighted the need for identifying and addressing the defect of the knowledge that leads to an undesirable attitude towards blood donation.