1. Categories of Blood Donors 2. Donor Recruitment Strategies 3. Donor Retention Strategies 4. Donor Education and motivation 5. Deterrents to Donation 6. Donor Selection and Counselling 7. Donor Deferral and Referral 8. NACO report 9. Donor records

1. A SEMINAR
ON-
DONOR
RECRUITMENT
CATEGORIES AND
STRATEGIES
Presented by- Dr. Shiny
Moderator- Dr. R.N
Maharishi

2. TOPICS
Categories of Blood Donors
Donor Recruitment Strategies
Donor Retention Strategies
Donor Education and motivation
Deterrents to Donation
Donor Selection and Counselling
Donor Deferral and Referral

3. DONOR RECRUITMENT PARAMETERS
NACO showed that 32.2% of the total Indian population is
eligible for blood donation as per the recent blood
donation criteria.
According to Complete Blood Estimation Report by NACO,
6.23% of this 32.3% eligible population should donate
blood in a year to address clinical demand of the Indian
population.
As per WHO, if 2% of the population donates blood, it
should be sufficient to meet the need for blood
requirements of a developing nation
But the actual donations as per NACO report were only
2.62% of this 32.2% (0.84% of total population) which

4. TYPES OF BLOOD DONORS
1. VOLUNTARY NON-REMUNERATED
BLOOD DONOR
A donor who donates blood, plasma, or
other blood components of his/her own
free will and receives no payment for it
Small tokens, refreshments and
reimbursement of the direct travel costs
are compatible with voluntary, non-
remunerated blood donation.

5. CATEGORIES OF VOLUNTARY BLOOD
DONORS ARE:
a) New voluntary donor: A voluntary non-
remunerated blood donor who is a first-time
donor and has never donated blood before.
b) Regular voluntary donor: A voluntary non-
remunerated blood donor who donates blood
regularly at least once a year.

6. A regular voluntary non-remunerated blood
donor has donated at least three times, the last
donation being within the previous year, and
continues to donate regularly at least once per
year.
c) Lapsed voluntary donor: A voluntary non-
remunerated blood donor who has given blood
in the past but does not fulfil the criteria for a
regular donor.

7. 2. FAMILY/REPLACEMENT BLOOD
DONOR
Donates blood when it is required by a member
of the donor’s family or community.
This may involve a hidden paid donation
system in which the patient’s family pays the
donor.
The replacement donor may or may not be a
family member or friend of the patient.

8. 3. PAID / PROFESSIONAL BLOOD DONOR
A professional donor donates blood in
exchange for money or any other form of
payment.
Professional blood donation is banned in our
country w.e.f. 1st January 1998.
4. FORCED BLOOD DONOR
A person who is unwilling to donate blood on
his/her wish but donates on being forced by
his/her superior or employer due to a fear of
losing one’s job or promotion if he does not

9. 5. AUTOLOGOUS BLOOD DONOR
A patient who donates his/ her blood to be
stored and re-infused to him /herself at a later
date, most commonly in rare blood groups.
6. DIRECTED BLOOD DONOR
A donor who donates blood for a patient and
the donated blood is exclusively directed to the
same patient.
These donors are usually the relatives or friends
of the patient.
This may be recommended in certain situations,
such as for patients with demand of fresh whole
blood, rare blood groups, multiple

10. 7. APHERESIS BLOOD DONOR
These are donors who donate the specific blood
component required for a patient through cell
separation on an apheresis machine.
These donations may be either voluntary or
replacement in nature.

11. 8. RARE BLOOD DONORS
In India, most common rare blood groups are-
Bombay blood group, INRA Blood group, Rare Rh
subtypes, CdE/CdE genotype etc.
Rare Blood Donor program includes-
Creating awareness among regular donors about rare blood
groups
Identifying and recruiting rare blood donors
Retention of these rare blood donors by education,
counselling and motivation.
Upgrading transfusion services for longer storage of rare
blood units through frozen/cryo storage.
Introducing the concept of autologous transfusion amongst
rare blood group recipients

12. DONORS RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES:
Donor’s recruitment is critical to the success of
supply of safe and adequate blood and its
products to meet patients need.
The main Donors Recruitment Strategies are:
• Pure voluntary-based recruitment.
• Social persuasion-based recruitment.
• Remunerated-based donation

13. 1. Pure voluntary based recruitment strategy-
Based on a sense of altruism or community
service
A voluntary donor donates the blood at his/her
own free will without distinction of caste, creed,
religion, colour, and status of the recipient and
does not expect any monetary benefits in
return.
These donors should be given more attention,
and all efforts should be made by the blood
collection facility to encourage and retain these

14. 2. Social persuasion-based recruitment strategy
Associated with persuasion of friends or
colleagues, religious organizations and political
leaders to donate blood.
Such persuasion is often done during the
outdoor blood donation drives at colleges,
political or religious units.
In another form of the same strategy, a
replacement donor donates for a patient, who is
a relative or a close friend, without any
monetary benefit.
The blood collection facility needs to focus on
and counsel these donors to become regular

15. 3. Remuneration-based Recruitment Strategy
Used by donors who donate blood to seek
some monetary benefit, in any form, from the
blood collection facility or patient’s relatives.
This kind of strategy is banned in India due to
high chances of infected blood and should be
discouraged.

16. 4. Role of social media in donor recruitment
The strategies to recruit the blood donors have evolved
from personal communication (donor or donor
motivator recruiting donors) and printed
advertisements to digital media.
About 86% of first-time donors and 85.7% of repeat
donors use the internet for updating general
information.
The younger population is attracted to interactive
websites and apps on many social media platforms,
which plays a vital role in recruiting new donors and
encouraging them to become repeat donors

17. -Social media platforms can be optimally utilized to
create positive awareness and importance of blood
donations and remove the myths or misconceptions
around blood donations
-can also be utilized to book the appointment for
donors and provide real-time location of mobile blood
collection units

18. 5. Blood Donation Camps-
- can be organised by any regional or national,
government or private licensed blood centre.
An authorised blood donation camp should have-
1. Sufficient area under premises with proper hygiene and
maintenance.
2. One medical officer, 3 technicians, 2
nurses/phlebotomists, 2 attendants
3. Disposable equipments
4. Accurate costing and budgeting
5. Cold Chain maintenance with proper blood bags
handling and disposal

19. DONOR RETENTION STRATEGIES
Static collection centers
• Adequate seating arrangement
• Donors must be comfortable
• Efficient donor motivation and education
• Post donation refreshments
• Must be offered a polite behaviour with adequate
confidentiality
Felicitation using badges/certificates

20. Mobile collection venues
• Suitable for shopping centers, sports stadium,
banks,
factories, colleges, schools, offices or any public
place.
• Can attract people to donate first time on impulse
can motivate
them to become repeat donors.

21. DETERRENTS TO DONATION
There are many deterrents to blood donation:
•Inconvenience, perceived incompetence of staff
performing blood collection activities
•Lack of cleanliness of a given facility/centre
•The perception that blood donation is not important
•The belief that one can contact a disease by donating
•The desire to remain ignorant of any positive results
from infectious disease testing on the donation
•The most frequently mentioned negative motivator to
donation is fear, including fear of needles, seeing
blood, weakness, dizziness, and discomfort.

22. DONOR MOTIVATION
Defined as a force or a process, which causes
non-donors to donate blood at their own desire
without any compulsion.
Starts with donor education, which is an
important bridge between awareness and
recruitment.
Donor education should be based on the type
of target population, their myths, and beliefs
for eliminating the misconceptions about blood
donation.

23. DONOR EDUCATION IS BASED ON-
Education programs like
Voluntary blood donation program by NACO
Publications by National and State Blood
Transfusion Councils
Theories on positive impacts of blood donation
to create awareness tailored to overcome fears
and heighten the awareness of need may be
helpful to enhance retention of donors

24. THE VOLUNTARY BLOOD DONATION PROGRAM
BY NACO INCLUDES DONOR EDUCATION ON -
- Creating awareness about the donation gap in India.
- Awareness regarding shortage of blood in your
blood centre.
- Explaining the advantage of blood donations
-Discussing myths and disbeliefs about blood
donation
- Holding seminars, discussions and street acts to
promote blood donation.
- Mass media approach for sensitising people for
participation.

25. DONOR EDUCATION BASED ON POSITIVE IMPACTS OF
BLOOD DONATION-
Blood donation is a noble, selfless act of service.
Sense of satisfaction of giving a “gift of life” to
someone in need.
Opportunity to undergo a general medical check-up
by a qualified physician.
Reported to be associated with lowering the risk of
cardiovascular diseases in middle-aged donors- The
“iron-hypothesis” was the main basis of these
proposed theories, as iron overload in the body is
proven to be a hallmark for heart failures.
The hypothesis states that reduction of the body iron
load with regular blood donation may help in reducing

26. BLOOD DONOR COUNSELLING
The World Health Organization defines blood
donor counselling as “a confidential dialogue
between a blood donor and a trained counsellor
about issues related to the donor's health and
the blood donation process”.
Done to maintain a pool of Voluntary non
remunerated blood donors and minimize
unnecessary loss of suitable donors

27. STAGES OF COUNSELLING FOR
BLOOD DONATION
a) Pre-donation information
b) Pre-donation counselling
c) Counselling during blood donation
d) Post-donation counselling

28. PRE DONATION INFORMATION AND
COUNSELLING
-“one to one” counselling session in privacy
before blood donation for all the registered and
potential blood donors
-includes a detailed explanation of the blood
donor questionnaire and the importance of
providing correct answers
-aims to familiarize and increase donor
awareness on process of blood donation and
TTI
-To alleviate donors’ anxiety and to clarify his

29. COUNSELLING DURING BLOOD
DONATION
-provided to make them comfortable at the
time of donation.
-The discussion during this stage should be
focused mainly to reduce the anxiety as well as
reducing the chances of any adverse donor
reaction during or post-donation.
-Post-donation advice and care for the
venipuncture site should also be explained at
this stage.

30. POST-DONATION COUNSELLING
Immediately after the donation, blood donors
are given some brief instructions for self-care
in the next 48 hours (called Post donation care)
and information about what to do in case of
adverse after-effects of donation (Post donation
advice)
Done to explain the test results, the need for
confirmation of the results, the health
implications for the donor and the suitability of
the donor for future blood donation and to
explain the discarding of TTI seropositive

31. POST DONATION CARE AND ADVICE
1. Drink more fluids in next 4 hours
2. If there is bleeding from the venepuncture
site, raise the arm and apply pressure until
the bleeding stops. Contact blood centre if
bleeding persists.
3. If donor experiences dizziness or fainting, he
should be made to lie down with both legs
raised.
4. Remove band-aid after 10-12 hours.
5. Donor should avoid sternous exercise or

32. DONOR SELECTION PROCESS
A qualified medical officer, considering the
medical history, physical examination and
simple laboratory tests (Hb, Blood grouping)
should carry out the donor selection process
according to the SOP.

33. The different steps involved are:
• Donor registration
• Pre-donation information and completion of
donor questionnaire
• Donor interview and pre-donation
counselling
• Donor health check-up and pre-donation
hemoglobin estimation
• Informed consent
• Donor deferral

34. Donor Deferral System
Types of deferral includes
1. Temporary deferral- for limited period. For
example- alcohol consumption, antibiotic
intake, tattoo, tooth extraction etc.
2. Indefinite deferral- for unspecified period of
time due to current regulatory requirements.
These donors may only perform autologous
donation. For example- donors who lived in UK
in 1989 for 1 year are deferred indefinitely
(H3N2 epidemic)

35. 3. Permanent deferral- For example- H/o
Hepatitis C, insulin dependent diabetes,
asthma, open heart bypass surgery, coronary
artery disease, rheumatoid heart disease,
thyrotoxicosis, syphilis, chronic kidney disease,
bleeding disorders etc.

36. RECALL AND REFERRAL OF SERO-
REACTIVE BLOOD DONORS
The donor who has consented to be contacted
by the blood collection centre in case of any
abnormal test results should be recalled so that
they can be informed about the initial
seroreactivity of transfusion transmitted
infection screening tests.
All recalled donors should be offered post-
donation counselling and referred to
appropriate department for further counselling,
confirmation, and management

37. DONOR RECORDS
The key records to be maintained include:
• Donor registration and information
• Donor questionnaire with informed consent
• Donor interview and assessment
• Donor deferral records
• Unique donation number assigned to each
donation
• Donor counselling records
• Adverse donor reactions

38. SUMMARY ON DONOR RECRUITMENT
AND RETENTION
1. Blood should be accepted only from voluntary, non
remunerated, low risk, safe and healthy donors
2. Efforts should be directed towards encouraging and
retaining adequate number of repeat donors.
3. Donors should be adequately recognised and felicitated.
4. The Blood Centre should educate donors prior to collection
regarding the risk of transfusion transmitted infections.
5. The replacement donors should be educated to become
regular voluntary donors.

39. REFERENCES
Harmening DM. Modern Blood Banking & Transfusion Practices
7th edition
DGHS. Tranfusion Medicine Technical Manual 3rd edition
Makroo RN. Principles & Practice of Transfusion Medicine 2nd
edition
NACO.gov.in – Final Blood Estimation Report of India