Exploration of the attendance of voluntary blood donors before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic

Introduction: Blood transfusion centres have faced very difficult times during the global COVID-19 pandemic. In response to this unprecedented pandemic in our country, governments and health authorities have taken measures to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus and implemented measures to increase blood supply and protect health workers, blood donors and patients who needed transfusion. Aim: The aim of this research study was to investigate the attendance of blood donors before, after and during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods: This retrospective study was approved by the Scientific Council of the General and University Hospital of Attica with protocol number 526 and date 12/7/2023. The sample of the study was voluntary blood donors who had come to donate blood from January 2018 to December 2023. Significant levels were two-sided and statistical significance was set at 0.05. The statistical program STATA 13.0 was used for the data analysis. Results: In total, data was recorded from 54,168 people who came to donate blood from 2018 to 2023. 34.9% of them came in the pre-Covid period (2018-2019), 28.2% in the Covid period (2020-2021) and 36.9% post-Covid (2022-2023). These percentages differed significantly from each other (p<0.001). Conclusions: The attendance rate for blood donation after Covid was significantly higher compared to what was pre-Covid, a fact that allows us to conclude that the preventive measures to protect the community won the trust of blood donors whoshow their social sensitivity and support the noble institution of blood donation.