Determining the Likelihood of an Individual to Become a Blood Donor Using Regression Analysis

Abstract

Blood products are a huge part of the health care system. Not having an option to have it manufactured limits the source to collecting blood from willing donors. This leads to a question on how we can ensure that the supply of the blood product will meet the demand of the patients in a health care institution? Through this study, the demographic profile of the respondents, which includes age, sex, employment status educational attainment, previous blood donation; together with their self-assessment of the knowledge on blood donation, personal hesitations, time to be allotted for the donation process, and location of the blood collection site; were analyzed through binomial logistic regression to determine the probability of each individual to become a blood donor. A self-made, validated and reliability tested, questionnaire was given to randomly selected residents of Taguig City, Philippines, whose age is between eighteen to sixty-four. The data gathered treated statistically using the binary logistic function of SPSS to determine the significant variables that affects the individual’s decision to donate blood. The analysis led to identifying age, employment status, previous donation, hesitation on blood donation and location of the collection site as significant variables that affect an individual’s preference to donate blood. Among these, only previous blood donation has a positive effect on the person’s choice of donating blood. It is also noteworthy that the said variable had increased the odds of becoming a repeat blood donor by sixty-six times, when compared to those who have not yet donated blood. This left sex, educational attainment, the person’s knowledge on blood donation and their time allotted for blood donation as non-significant contributors to the person’s choice to donate. Through these findings, it was evident that there are variables that significantly influence the probability of the individual to donate. These include age, employment status, previous donation, hesitation on blood donation and the location of the collection. People would more likely choose to become blood donors when they are younger, presently unemployed and has less hesitation. A previous experience will increase the likelihood further. With the identification of the variables that would affect the individual preference, this will enable the recruitment team to adjust their strategies on how to encourage people to become volunteers and help save lives.