Motivation of women to donate blood

Abstract:Blood donation is a process in which the donor, out of his ethical, moral, humanitarian and even patriotic feelings, donates part of his precious fluid to save the life of a helpless and injured person whom he does not even know and who will probably never meet. To ensure sufficient amounts of safe blood and blood components, blood donation services should implement activities that will motivate more and more people to join the blood donation process, especially the female population, enabling them to actively and equally participate in blood donation programs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the representation of women in the total number of blood donors in the period from 2015-2023 and to prepare a strategy to gradually and reliably increase their number. In order to realize the set goals, an analysis of the number of blood donations in STM Prilep was made through the gender division of men and women both in the service itself and in blood donation actions in secondary schools in Prilep, and the results are shown both tabularly and graphically with an appropriate discussion about them.During the development of the paper, we concluded that the period from 2015-2023. we can divide it into three parts, and that is the period from 2015-2019, in which period 86% men and 14% women donated with the service, and in the same period in secondary schools, of the total number of students who donated blood, 68% were men, and 32% were women. The second period is the period from 2020-2021, which we take separately because in this period the pandemic of the covid virus appeared, during which the world functioned under special rules and protocols, so blood donation was also faced with new norms and rules of donation. In this period, we have 83% men and 17% women, while in secondary schools there are a total of 47 donors, of which 28 or 60% are men and 19 or 40% are women. And the last period is after the pandemic from 2022-2023, when the conditions are normalized and we have an increased number of donations, but the percentage remains the same, 83% are men, and 17% are women.. While in secondary schools, we have a larger number of students who donate and an increased number of female donors, 53% men and 47 % women.The research unequivocally showed that in order to motivate the female population as a special category, constant promotion and education of the entire population is needed by organizing promotional activities related to blood donation. Here we must mention that in order to motivate and permanently retain donors, communication and the behavior of the medical staff whose care and professionalism will be shown before, during and after the blood donation, which would create confidence in the donor that he is cared for by a professional staff expertly trained to perform the assigned tasks.In the end, we need to show that women in our society are an important link in all social processes, including blood donation, an equal participant in the care of citizens' health. Keywords: motivating women, blood donation,transfusion medicine,voluntary donation