A Descriptive Study to Assess the knowledge and Attitude towards Blood and Organ Donation among College Students in a Selected College of West Bengal

Background: Blood and organ transplantation helps to regain patients’ life for second time. But health services are facing shortage of blood and organ all over the world. Thus we need to identify the cause behind organ and blood shortage. The aim of this descriptive research was to determine the knowledge and attitude of college students regarding blood and organ donation. Methods: Through convenient sampling self-reported data were collected from 180 college students. Self-reported data were collected using structured questionnaire and data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Majority (67.78%) of the students’ age is 19 and above, 51.67% are male, 92.78% are from Hindu families. Major sources of information regarding blood and organ donation was newspaper. 47.22% students had fair knowledge and most of them (73.33%) had favorable attitude score regarding blood donation. 52.78% students had fair knowledge score regarding organ donation and 72.78% students had favorable attitude score regarding organ donation. There was a positive correlation between knowledge and attitude score of blood and organ donation. There was significant association between knowledge score of blood donation with educational stream, availability of information regarding blood donation and participant’s blood donation history. There was significant association between knowledge score of organ donation with educational stream, habitat and availability of information regarding organ donation. Other sociodemographic characteristics were not associated with knowledge and attitude of blood and organ donation. Conclusion : Hence we need to think of measures to encourage people so as to achieve 100% voluntary blood donation and adequate supply of organ.