«I don’t donate blood». (Mis)beliefs, false information and prejudices about altruistic blood donation

Altruistic blood donation is a safe and painless gesture that saves millions of lives around the world every year. Recruiting and maintaining new donors requires health centers to develop communication strategies that are adapted to the attitudes and beliefs of the target public. This paper uses the Theory of Planned Behavior to analyze the main limitations for university students to donate blood. It also identifies the information they handle and the common myths and misconceptions about this practice. A mixed research methodology with a sequential design was used that included several focus groups and a survey answered by 656 Spanish university students, stratified by branch of knowledge according to their current studies. The results revealed a high level of self-efficacy, which was most apparent in critical situations. They also showed that university education does not result in people being more predisposed to give blood, which seems particularly striking among future healthcare professionals; and that the obstacles that prevent young people from giving blood differ according to gender: the slackness prevails in men (43.2%) and the fear in women (30.6%). Finally, the importance of behavioral referents in the personal context (social learning) was observed, as well as the effectiveness of the empathic persuasive narrative adapted to the target group for communication and awareness raising campaigns.