DOI: https://doi.org/10.36347/sjams.2026.v14i04.017

Pages: 528-532

Background: Blood transfusion services are essential for patient care, but donor rejection is necessary to ensure both donor safety and blood quality. Donor deferral can result from medical, non-medical, physical, and serological factors, with temporary or permanent exclusion depending on risk. Understanding these causes helps optimize donor selection and transfusion safety. Objective: To assess the patterns and causes of donor rejection in a tertiary care hospital blood transfusion service. Methods: This retrospective, cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in the Department of Transfusion Medicine, National Institute of Kidney Diseases, Dhaka, Bangladesh, over a one-year period from January 2025 to December 2025. A total of 9,619 blood donors were included, of whom 241 were rejected, giving a rejection rate of 2.5%. Data were obtained from the departmental donor register book and reviewed retrospectively to extract relevant information on donor demographics, medical history, physical examination findings, and serological screening results. Donor selection and deferral were carried out according to standard transfusion service protocols, including medical assessment, physical examination, hemoglobin estimation, and mandatory infectious disease screening. The collected data were checked for accuracy, cleaned, and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0, with results presented as frequencies and percentages. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of the National Institute of Kidney Diseases, and confidentiality of donor information was strictly maintained throughout the study in accordance with ethical research guidelines. Results: Assessment of physical causes of donor rejection revealed that high blood pressure was the leading factor, responsible for 3.9% of deferrals. Underweight donors accounted for 2% of the rejected cases. The study showed that donor rejection was most common among individuals aged 31–40 years (55.0%), followed by 1