Blood donor notification and counselling: Experience from a teaching hospital in Eastern India

Abstract

Aims: To evaluate the response rate of transfusion transmissible infections (TTI) reactive donors after notifying their abnormal test results at a teaching hospital in eastern India from March 2019 to January 2020. Materials and Methods: This study is a retrospective analysis performed at our department for a period of 11 months. We evaluated the response rate of the sero-reactive donors towards notification of their abnormal test results as a part of post-donation counselling as per the existing strategy of our institute (one telephonic call followed by two reminder calls within one week) in the mobile number provided by the donor. Results: During the period of study among 9922 blood donors 201(2.02%) were sero reactive. Among these the sero-reactive pattern of HIV, HBV, HCV, Syphilis, Malaria were 0.06%, 0.65%, 0.60%, 0.69%, and 0.01%, respectively. After notifying them telephonically about 63.1 %( n=127) could be contacted, advised, and termed Responders. About 36.8% (n=74) could not be contacted and termed Non-Responders due to various reasons analyzed. 25.2 % (n=32) reported at our institute for face to face counselling. Conclusion: Donor notification is an effective method of curtailing TTI but undermined by communication failure with donors, resulting in a persistent load of blood transmissible infectious risk. We need a better structure of pre-donation counselling with the latest and more developed means of communication with our valuable blood donors.