Blood Donor notification and counseling of reactive test result in Blood Bank of South Gujarat: A better approach to prevent reactive donors from donating blood again

Abstract

Background: Besides all other measures like predonation donor screening and testing for transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs) on donated blood, another tool for preventing disease transmission by transfusion is to inform and counsel reactive donors about the status of TTIs reactivity and prevent them for donating blood in future. Materials and Methods: The present observational study was carried out in blood bank of Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion at a Tertiary Care Government Hospital in South Gujarat over a period of 3 years involving total 25,020 donors including 353 reactive donors. The reactive donors were informed by the blood bank counselor about an abnormal test result with an advice to report to the blood bank for one-to-one counseling and repeat testing, as well as for referral to the respective department/integrated counseling and testing center/sexually transmitted disease clinics of the hospital for further management. The response rate of TTIs reactive donors after notification of their abnormal test results was evaluated. Results: Of the 353 TTIs marker-reactive donors, 320 (90.65%) reactive donors could be contacted and of which 261 (81.56%) responded positively to the notification calls and attended counseling at the blood bank and 59 (18.44%) informed donors did not respond at all. Conclusions: In the study, due to incorrect or changed contact details, 33 (9.35%) reactive donors could not be contacted and among 59 nonresponded reactive donors, the major reasons were donor's busy schedule, out of city residence, and not willing to visit the blood bank again.

Keywords

• Blood donor counseling
• donor notification
• posttest counseling
• transfusion-transmitted infections