Psychological, Social, And Cultural Factors Influencing Blood Donation In Australia

Motivators and barriers for blood donation in Australia

In recent years, the demand for blood is consistently increasing while the countries like United State, United Kingdom, Australia do not have sufficient number of major blood donors (Abderrahman & Saleh, 2014). This situation has leaded the blood collection organisations to a critical situation where the time to time supply of adequate amount of blood is not functional properly. It has been found that blood donors from a population where the risk is low are more voluntary where the non-remunerated population are the safest (Bednall et al., 2013). The blood collection procedure in voluntary blood donation is not adequate and still not achieved properly. Therefore finding the reason behind the lack of motivation among the population towards this voluntary blood donation practice has become essential (Griffin, Grace & O’Cass, 2014). Therefore, the primary aim of this research is to determine the impacts of psychological, social, cultural and other influential factors on the existing and potential blood donors throughout the Australia. 

This paper will present a research based on the above mentioned topic in order to make adequate documentations to analyse the socio-psychological condition of the target population. In the next section the literature review will be presented briefly. In the next step, the research aims and objectives will be presented with research hypotheses. The method section will describe the data collection and analysis process. Through findings and discussion the research will come up will appropriate conclusion that can help to meet the research aim by achieving the research objectives.  

In the literature review section the segmentation of population as per their socio-psychological perspective is presented with the motivational factors. The barriers of the blood donation practice has also analysed along with the description of existing and potential influences the target population is currently getting through media communication channels.

The social and psychological perspective of the population defines the tendency of being engaged in social work or voluntary works like blood donation (Alfieri et al., 2016). About 30% of the Australian population needs a steady supply of stored blood where only 6 to 10 donors return to donate blood out of 100 sample population (Lucky et al., 2014). On an average day 2500liters/day blood supply is required in Australian hospital and healthcare services (Masser et al., 2009). Apart from that, they are mostly regular in donating blood (WHO, 2018).  It enhances the convenience of blood mostly in emergency situation while aiding blood banks with constant supply can the availability of blood (Zanin et al., 2016).  

As per Bednall & Bove (2011), pro-social motivations, such as Altruism, community welfare and influences from friends and family were repeatedly acknowledged by first-time donors as well as experienced donors. Apart from that, it is also mentioned that personal values is a major motivation source to donate and the reputation of the blood banks also played a vital role in encouraging them to donate. From various government and non-government organisations numerous motivational and health promotional campaign have made to encourage and motivate the population of Australia towards voluntary blood donation practice (Aldamiz-echevarria & Aguirre-Garcia, 2014). The blood donation is one of the most precious services for the society in which an individual can participate willingly that could motivate the corresponding population about their sense of responsibility, community awareness, and empathy and health control (Beerli?Palacio & Martín?Santana, 2009).  

The impact of communication channels on blood donation practices

The initial reason behind the fear and avoidance for blood donation is negative perception of people (Gillespie and Hillyer, 2002). Fear of needles, fear of contracting any diseases, fear of pain, uneasiness about the sight of blood, perceived negative health effects, fatigue, nausea and dizziness are the major misperceptions of the potential blood donors. Many resistances are acting internally and externally among the population of Globe against the tendency of being engaged in a blood donation campaign (Goncalez et al., 2008). The major resistance is the misperception of population about the cause and outcomes of the blood donation. A huge number of Australian thinks that donating blood can lead a person to be more prone to blood transmitted decease (Appiah et al., 2013). Apart from that, another percentage of population are not aware of the purpose of blood donation practice and they do not have enough knowledge about how essential the blood donation practice is for sustainable healthy environment.

In this era of digitalisation, online communication and social network have become the essential components of a person’s regular life (Healy & Murphy, 2017). Henceforth, Online and social media based health promotion, television and radio based promotion, printed Medias have considerable impact on the motivational factors of the potential blood donors (Kay, Santos &Takane, 2011). M-health is an innovative perception aimed to enhancing the health care services providing with ‘emergency healthcare information, electronic medical records (EMR), electronic health records (EHR), and health monitoring systems’ (Ouhbi et al., 2015).  The potential donors also use technology for their community participation.

It is essential to estimate the social and psychological factors and their impacts on individual perception about blood donation, in order to find out the appropriate strategy to resolve the issue of low blood supply across the Australia and even the globe (World Health Organization, 2018). Hence, the aim of this research is to identify the relevant motivators and barriers for blood donation within the target population, and also to understand the essentiality of several types of communication channels to the sample size to form the characteristics of this segment.

The 4 objectives have been developed to meet the research goal while assuming 2 hypotheses for each objectives as presented below:

RO1: To determine the motivators for blood donation among male and female donors

H1a: Younger generation is more motivated towards blood donation

H1b: The knowledge makes positive attitude in younger generation towards blood donation

RO2: To distinguish the decision making process of males and females for blood donation

H2a: Men are more likely regular blood donor than women

H2b: Females are more likely to make decision to donate with their emotion than men are

RO3: To determine the barriers to blood donation among male and female potential donors

H3a: Fear of transmittable disease and pain is more important to females than males

H3b: Fear of transmittable disease and pain lowers the intentions of blood donation

RO4: To identify the communication channels of most interest to potential donors

H4a: Family and friends are the more effective communication channel then Television and radio

Technology use and community participation in blood donation practices

H4b: Internet and social media are more effective communication channel then conventional channel

The research is aimed to find the underling facts behind the motivation and perception of target population towards the blood donation practice. The research has followed the interpretivism philosophy that allowed to focus more on primary data collection. The research has some predetermined hypotheses to meet the objectives (Bednall & Bove, 2011). Therefore, deductive research approach has been followed throughout the data analysis. The research is more focused on explaining the assumption while validating them with the outcomes of data collection and analysis. Therefore, the research has aligned with the explanatory research design.  The primary data collection has been followed for data collection strategy.

The non-probability convenience sampling approach has been followed to conduct the survey based data collection through intercepts at a major public university and various locations within the community of a capital city in Australia. The locations were chosen to maximise respondent heterogeneity. There were no inducements to participation in the research. The sampling size comprised with 276 participants from different social, demographical, cultural, geographical and psychological background. The expected age range of the participants are 15 to 90 years old, in order to make the results independent from any demographical barrier. The survey was conduct on the Australian population in order to measure the trends in national level.

The research utilised 2 types of instrument to conduct the research. For data collection the research utilised the survey based data collection technique with semi structured questionnaire.  The survey was conducted over three weeks to develop the final dataset out of the responses of the participants. In the data analysis part the research utilised the SPSS data analysis tools while analysing the nominal, ordinal and numerical data with quantitative data analysis procedure. Both table and graphical representation have been used to analyse and visualise the findings.

In the data analysis section the sample size, sample properties and segmentation of participants have been considered. The independent group based comparison, correlation and regression analysis,  distributive statistical analysis and chi-squire test process have been used to examined the data and to develop the findings. In the data collection process, the Ethical consideration was also prioritised while imposing the data protection and privacy regulation within the survey tool (Reid & Wood, 2008). Apart from that willingness of the participants was the core concern of the research that ensured that participant were free to skip a question and event quit the survey whenever they wanted.

Age test  

The descriptive statistics shows the mean value at approximately 29. Therefore, the mean age of the participants is 29. The age of 29 in the bandwidth of 14 to 84, indicates a data which tends to be towards 14. 

Level of education
	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Attended high school	40	14.5	14.7	14.7
High school graduate	83	30.1	30.4	45.1
TAFE	40	14.5	14.7	59.7
Trades school graduate	13	4.7	4.8	64.5
Undergraduate degree	71	25.7	26.0	90.5
Postgraduate degree	26	9.4	9.5	100.0
Total	273	98.9	100.0
Missing	System	3	1.1
Total	276	100.0

Table: Educational Qualification and statistical distribution 

Figure: Educational qualification and percentage distribution graph

The frequency distribution of the respondents shows that the education does not has any significant changes with the percentage of respondents.       

The expected count of 0% cells in T test is less than 5 and the minimum expected count is 7.62. It means the Chi squire test is acceptable to evaluate the results. In this case the Alpha value is 0.05 however the person chi square test shows 0.149 in asymptotic significant. Therefore, the statistical differences in men and women trends in blood donation is not significant.

Decision-making process of males and females for blood donation

Both equal variance of intention of donating blood with emotion has the 2 tailed significant value of 0.013. This value is lower that the alpha value which is 0.05. Therefore, the emotion has significant impact on decision making for donating blood. At the same time, the group statistics the mean value of men in emotional impact on decision is 4.08 and the mean value of women in emotional impact on decision is 4.58 which is significantly higher than the male.

Table: Male and Female Group Statistics on motivations and resistance amongst participants

The mean value of fear of transmitted disease in men is 2.33 and the mean value of fear of pain in men is 2.44. On the other hand, the mean value of fear of transmitted disease in women is 2.53 and the mean value of fear of pain in men is 3.25. In both cases, the mean value of women is higher than men. 

As per the correlation data, presentation the 2 tailed significant value for ‘fear of pain’ and fear of caching disease with donation behaviour is 0.00. It means there is significant relation between the fear of pain and decease and the frequency of donation. In both fear of pain and fear of caching disease, the person correlation data with the donation behaviour is negative. 

The mean value of importance of family and Importance of friends are 5.38 and 5.21respectively. The mean value of importance of Television and Importance of radio are 4.35 and 3.87 respectively. In both cases the mean values of importance of family and friends is higher than the mean value of television and radio.

The mean value of importance of Facebook, Importance of social media and Importance of internet are 3.55, 2.24 and 4.64 respectively. The mean value of Importance of newspaper, importance of news paper are 3.25 and 3.77 respectively. Therefore, the mean of the mean values of social network and internet is (3.55+2.24+4.64) divided by 3 is 3.48 approximately. The mean of the mean values of traditional channels is (3.25+3.77) divided by 2 is 3.51, which is slightly higher than the mean value of mean values of social network and internet. 

H1a: Younger generation is more motivated towards blood donation

The descriptive statistics shows the mean value at approximately 29 in the bandwidth of 14 to 84, indicates a data, which tends to be towards 14. It means most of the participants are young and interested about blood donation. Therefore, H1a hypothesis is excepted.

H1b: The knowledge makes positive attitude in younger generation towards blood donation

The frequency distribution of the respondents shows that the education does not have any significant changes with the percentage of respondents. Therefore, there is no chance of education to make positive attitude in younger people. Therefore, H1b hypothesis is rejected.

H2a: Men are more likely regular blood donor than women

Alpha value is 0.05 however the person chi square test shows 0.149 in asymptotic significant. Therefore, the statistical differences in men and women trends in blood donation are not significant. Therefore, there is no chance of men to be more likely a regular blood donor. Therefore, H2a hypothesis is rejected.

Perceptions of blood donation and misperceptions of the potential blood donors

H2b: Females are more likely to make decision to donate with their emotion than men are

Both equal variance of intention of donating blood with emotion has the 2 tailed significant value of 0.013. This value is lower that the alpha value which is 0.05. Therefore, the emotion has significant impact on decision making for donating blood. At the same time, the group statistics the mean value of men in emotional impact on decision is 4.08 and the mean value of women in emotional impact on decision is 4.58, which is significantly higher than the male. Therefore, more of the women like to make decision with their emotion than men. Hence, H2b hypothesis is accepted.   

H3a: Fear of transmittable disease and pain is more important to females than males

The mean value of fear of transmitted disease and the mean value of fear of pain, in both cases the mean value of women is higher than men. That means women have more fear of transmittable disease and pain than male. Therefore, H3a hypothesis is accepted.  

H3b: Fear of transmittable disease and pain lowers the intentions of blood donation

There is significant relation between the fear of pain and decease and the frequency of donation. In both fear of pain and fear of caching disease, all the collections of person correlation data with the donation behaviour are negative. Therefore, fear of pain and fear of caching disease has negative impact on donating frequency. Hence, H3b hypothesis is accepted.

H4a: Family and friends are the more effective communication channel then Television and radio

The mean value of importance of family and Importance of friends is higher than the mean value of importance of Television and Importance of radio. Therefore, Family and friends is the more effective communication channel for most of the participants then Television and radio. Hence, H4a hypothesis is accepted.

H4b: Internet and social media are more effective communication channel then conventional channel

The mean of the mean values of social network and internet is 3.48 approximately. The mean of the mean values of traditional channels is 3.51. The mean value of conventional media is higher than the mean value of mean values of social network and internet. Hence, conventional channel is more effective then Internet and social media as per the most of the participant’s answers. Therefore, H4b hypothesis is rejected. 

Conclusion and recommendation 

Conclusion 

As per the findings, it can be concluded that a large section of blood donors are avoiding the blood donating activity because of their fear of occasional blood transmissible diseases. Community welfare, self esteem, social attitude, behaviour, knowledge, perspective can be the potential regulators that motivate or de-motivate a person about blood donation. Various social and communal information channels such as friends, family, social cultures also motivate the potential blood donor to make a positive decision. It has been also found that, women blood donors are influenced by their emotion.

In order to increase the awareness in target population several recommended activities can be executed. The blood donation awareness should be presented more in printed and traditional media along with the digital media platform. The government and NGO organisation should make multiple awareness campaign to reduce the fear and miss perception about transmitted disease and pain within the community (Guiddi et al., 2015).

The limitations of this research are that most of the research data is focused on Australian citizen especially who live in metropolitan or urban area. It has limited the potential visibility and tangibility of research results and findings. The research has focused excessively on the cause behind the perspective of target population in spite of finding suggestion for making awareness and motivation for blood donation practice. 

Reference 

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