DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i03.052

Pages: 1066-1069

The need for blood donation is increasing day by day due to advances made in clinical medicine. Medical and Dental students form a large, healthy, and active population of potential blood donors; their recruitment and retention would immensely help meet the demand of safe blood. To study the awareness regarding blood donation among first year Medical and Dental students in our institution and compare the two groups. A cross-sectional study among 49 first year medical students at NKP Salve Institute of Medical Science, Nagpur and 50 first year dental students at VSPM Dental College, Nagpur was conducted using a pre-designed, pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire consisting of three levels, testing the general knowledge, pre-requisites of blood donation and details of the same. All the 99 students were aware of blood donation but only 7.07% (7 out of 99) had donated blood. Donation rate was slightly more in MBBS students (5.05%) as compared to BDS students (2.02%). The most common reason for not donating blood was that they were never approached among 44.44% students followed by 20.20% students stating that they were underweight. Despite having knowledge about blood donation, prevalence of donation was very low among both MBBS and BDS students. This issue can be tackled by creating awareness at initial stages of higher education by conducting periodic awareness programs.