Abstract

Background: In current medical and surgical practice, blood transfusion can be a vital, life-saving remedy. But it requires an adequate supply of safe blood from a healthy donor. For this, proper healthy and safe donor selection is necessary. Most common cause of deferral in blood donation is anemia.

Objective: To assess the prevalence and pattern of anemia in blood donors.

Materials and Methods: This study was conducted during the period from February 2015 to June 2015 in Sardar Patel Medical College, Department of Transfusion Medicine. The study included 11,635 volunteers who reported to donate blood. Hemoglobin estimation was done by using HemoCue 301. Morphology of anemia was estimated by peripheral blood film examination and complete blood count. Serum ferritin was estimated by electrochemiluminescence. All the data were tabulated and statistically analyzed by using SPSS software.

Result: Overall incidence of deferral was 7.5%. The prevalence of anemia among donors was 1.7%. The prevalence of anemia among female donors was higher than male donors (26.4% vs. 1.1%). Mild anemia (67%) was the most common type of anemia. Most common morphological type of anemia was microcytic hypochromic anemia (57%). Iron deficient anemia (62.5%) was the most common cause of anemia.

Conclusion: Female donors particularly of the reproductive age group were more commonly affected than male donors. The data of our study showed that there was a need to understand the problem and to educate the regular donors regarding iron deficiency and iron supplementation.

Key words: Blood donor, anemia, hemoglobin, blood bank