Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: Blood transfusion is one of the essential and life saving procedures done in hospitals to treat variety of medical indications like accidental trauma, pre operative blood transfusion and various other hematological diseases. In India alone the annual requirement of blood is close to 8 million units of which, only 30% is being collected from voluntary blood donors. Healthy young adults are more enthusiastic and motivated to do voluntary blood donation. Medical students can form one of the important emergency team of voluntary blood donors to the hospitals to which they are attached. Objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude and perceptions of the 1st Year MBBS students about blood donation and its effects. Methodology: A self structured questionnaire was prepared consisting of questions which were used to assess the knowledge, attitude and perceptions of 1st MBBS students regarding blood donation and its effects. The responses were analyzed using Microsoft excel and Epi Info 7. Results: All the 130 students (100%) revealed that they had heard about blood donation and entire study group knew their blood group and Rh typing. 65 (50%) reported that they knew about the average amount of blood donated by the donor and 71(54.61%) cited that they had prior knowledge about the criteria for selecting a voluntary blood donor. 95.38% opined that they were willing donate blood if and when the need arises. Conclusion: 1st MBBS students had good background knowledge about blood donation and majority of the study group were willing to voluntarily donate blood and render their service to the society during emergencies and on regular basis.