Exploring Opportunities and Barriers in Voluntary Blood Donation Rates in Australia

This research aims to identify the relevant motivators and barriers for blood donation within the target population, and also to understand the essentiality of several types of communication channels to the sample size to form the characteristics of this segment. The research has followed the interpretivism philosophy that allowed to focus more on primary data collection. The non-probability convenience sampling approach has been followed to conduct the survey based data collection on 276 participants within the community of a capital city in Australia. The research utilised the survey based data collection technique with semi structured questionnaire. The survey was conducted over three weeks to develop the final dataset out of the responses of the participants. In the data analysis part the research utilised the SPSS data analysis tools while analysing the nominal, ordinal and numerical data with quantitative data analysis procedure.

Running head: MARKET RESEARCH PROJECT
Exploring the Opportunities and Barriers within Voluntary Blood Donation Rates in Australia
through an Effective Communication Platform
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Abstract
The blood collection procedure in voluntary blood donation is not adequate and still
not achieved properly. Therefore finding the reason behind the lack of motivation among the
population towards this voluntary blood donation practice has become essential.
In the literature review section the segmentation of population as per their socio-
psychological perspective is presented with the motivational factors. The barriers of the blood
donation practice has also analysed along with the description of existing and potential
influences the target population is currently getting through media communication channels.
The non-probability convenience sampling approach has been followed to conduct the
survey based data collection on 276 participants within the community of a capital city in
Australia.
Through this research, it has been fund that a large section of blood donors are
avoiding the blood donating activity because of their fear of occasional blood transmissible
diseases. Various social and communal information channels such as friends, family, social
cultures also motivate the potential blood donor to make a positive decision.

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Table of content
1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................4
2 Literature review.....................................................................................................................4
2.1 Segmentation and Characteristics....................................................................................5
2.2 Motivation for blood donation.........................................................................................5
2.3 Barriers in blood donation................................................................................................5
2.3 Influence of media and communication channels............................................................6
3 Research aims, Objectives and hypotheses.............................................................................6
5 Method and rationale...............................................................................................................7
5.1 Methodology....................................................................................................................7
5.2 participants.......................................................................................................................8
5.3 Research instrument.........................................................................................................8
5.4 Procedure and consideration............................................................................................8
6 Results and discussion.............................................................................................................9
6.1 Data presentation and findings.........................................................................................9
6.2 Hypothesis testing..........................................................................................................18
7 Conclusion and recommendation..........................................................................................20
7.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................20
7.2 Recommendations..........................................................................................................20
7.3 Limitation.......................................................................................................................20
Reference..................................................................................................................................21

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Appendix- reflection:...............................................................................................................23

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1 Introduction
In recent years, the demand for blood is consistently increasing while the countries
like United State, United Kingdom, Australia do not have sufficient number of major blood
donors (Abderrahman & Saleh, 2014). This situation has leaded the blood collection
organisations to a critical situation where the time to time supply of adequate amount of
blood is not functional properly. It has been found that blood donors from a population where
the risk is low are more voluntary where the non-remunerated population are the safest
(Bednall et al., 2013). The blood collection procedure in voluntary blood donation is not
adequate and still not achieved properly. Therefore finding the reason behind the lack of
motivation among the population towards this voluntary blood donation practice has become
essential (Griffin, Grace & O'Cass, 2014). Therefore, the primary aim of this research is to
determine the impacts of psychological, social, cultural and other influential factors on the
existing and potential blood donors throughout the Australia.
This paper will present a research based on the above mentioned topic in order to
make adequate documentations to analyse the socio-psychological condition of the target
population. In the next section the literature review will be presented briefly. In the next step,
the research aims and objectives will be presented with research hypotheses. The method
section will describe the data collection and analysis process. Through findings and
discussion the research will come up will appropriate conclusion that can help to meet the
research aim by achieving the research objectives.
2 Literature review
In the literature review section the segmentation of population as per their socio-
psychological perspective is presented with the motivational factors. The barriers of the blood

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donation practice has also analysed along with the description of existing and potential
influences the target population is currently getting through media communication channels.
2.1 Segmentation and Characteristics
The social and psychological perspective of the population defines the tendency of
being engaged in social work or voluntary works like blood donation (Alfieri et al., 2016).
About 30% of the Australian population needs a steady supply of stored blood where only 6
to 10 donors return to donate blood out of 100 sample population (Lucky et al., 2014). On an
average day 2500liters/day blood supply is required in Australian hospital and healthcare
services (Masser et al., 2009). Apart from that, they are mostly regular in donating blood
(WHO, 2018). It enhances the convenience of blood mostly in emergency situation while
aiding blood banks with constant supply can the availability of blood (Zanin et al., 2016).
2.2 Motivation for blood donation
As per Bednall & Bove (2011), pro-social motivations, such as Altruism, community
welfare and influences from friends and family were repeatedly acknowledged by first-time
donors as well as experienced donors. Apart from that, it is also mentioned that personal
values is a major motivation source to donate and the reputation of the blood banks also
played a vital role in encouraging them to donate. From various government and non-
government organisations numerous motivational and health promotional campaign have
made to encourage and motivate the population of Australia towards voluntary blood
donation practice (Aldamiz-echevarria & Aguirre-Garcia, 2014). The blood donation is one
of the most precious services for the society in which an individual can participate willingly
that could motivate the corresponding population about their sense of responsibility,
community awareness, and empathy and health control (Beerli‐Palacio & Martín‐Santana,
2009).

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2.3 Barriers in blood donation
The initial reason behind the fear and avoidance for blood donation is negative
perception of people (Gillespie and Hillyer, 2002). Fear of needles, fear of contracting any
diseases, fear of pain, uneasiness about the sight of blood, perceived negative health effects,
fatigue, nausea and dizziness are the major misperceptions of the potential blood donors.
Many resistances are acting internally and externally among the population of Globe against
the tendency of being engaged in a blood donation campaign (Goncalez et al., 2008). The
major resistance is the misperception of population about the cause and outcomes of the
blood donation. A huge number of Australian thinks that donating blood can lead a person to
be more prone to blood transmitted decease (Appiah et al., 2013). Apart from that, another
percentage of population are not aware of the purpose of blood donation practice and they do
not have enough knowledge about how essential the blood donation practice is for sustainable
healthy environment.
2.3 Influence of media and communication channels
In this era of digitalisation, online communication and social network have become
the essential components of a person’s regular life (Healy & Murphy, 2017). Henceforth,
Online and social media based health promotion, television and radio based promotion,
printed Medias have considerable impact on the motivational factors of the potential blood
donors (Kay, Santos &Takane, 2011). M-health is an innovative perception aimed to
enhancing the health care services providing with ‘emergency healthcare information,
electronic medical records (EMR), electronic health records (EHR), and health monitoring

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systems’ (Ouhbi et al., 2015). The potential donors also use technology for their community
participation.
3 Research aims, Objectives and hypotheses
It is essential to estimate the social and psychological factors and their impacts on
individual perception about blood donation, in order to find out the appropriate strategy to
resolve the issue of low blood supply across the Australia and even the globe (World Health
Organization, 2018). Hence, the aim of this research is to identify the relevant motivators and
barriers for blood donation within the target population, and also to understand the
essentiality of several types of communication channels to the sample size to form the
characteristics of this segment.
The 4 objectives have been developed to meet the research goal while assuming 2
hypotheses for each objectives as presented below:
RO1: To determine the motivators for blood donation among male and female donors
H1a: Younger generation is more motivated towards blood donation
H1b: The knowledge makes positive attitude in younger generation towards blood
donation
RO2: To distinguish the decision making process of males and females for blood donation
H2a: Men are more likely regular blood donor than women
H2b: Females are more likely to make decision to donate with their emotion than men
are
RO3: To determine the barriers to blood donation among male and female potential donors
H3a: Fear of transmittable disease and pain is more important to females than males

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H3b: Fear of transmittable disease and pain lowers the intentions of blood donation
RO4: To identify the communication channels of most interest to potential donors
H4a: Family and friends are the more effective communication channel then
Television and radio
H4b: Internet and social media are more effective communication channel then
conventional channel
5 Method and rationale
5.1 Methodology
The research is aimed to find the underling facts behind the motivation and perception
of target population towards the blood donation practice. The research has followed the
interpretivism philosophy that allowed to focus more on primary data collection. The
research has some predetermined hypotheses to meet the objectives (Bednall & Bove, 2011).
Therefore, deductive research approach has been followed throughout the data analysis. The
research is more focused on explaining the assumption while validating them with the
outcomes of data collection and analysis. Therefore, the research has aligned with the
explanatory research design. The primary data collection has been followed for data
collection strategy.
5.2 participants
The non-probability convenience sampling approach has been followed to conduct the
survey based data collection through intercepts at a major public university and various
locations within the community of a capital city in Australia. The locations were chosen to
maximise respondent heterogeneity. There were no inducements to participation in the

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research. The sampling size comprised with 276 participants from different social,
demographical, cultural, geographical and psychological background. The expected age range
of the participants are 15 to 90 years old, in order to make the results independent from any
demographical barrier. The survey was conduct on the Australian population in order to
measure the trends in national level.
5.3 Research instrument
The research utilised 2 types of instrument to conduct the research. For data collection
the research utilised the survey based data collection technique with semi structured
questionnaire. The survey was conducted over three weeks to develop the final dataset out of
the responses of the participants. In the data analysis part the research utilised the SPSS data
analysis tools while analysing the nominal, ordinal and numerical data with quantitative data
analysis procedure. Both table and graphical representation have been used to analyse and
visualise the findings.
5.4 Procedure and consideration
In the data analysis section the sample size, sample properties and segmentation of
participants have been considered. The independent group based comparison, correlation and
regression analysis, distributive statistical analysis and chi-squire test process have been used
to examined the data and to develop the findings. In the data collection process, the Ethical
consideration was also prioritised while imposing the data protection and privacy regulation
within the survey tool (Reid & Wood, 2008). Apart from that willingness of the participants
was the core concern of the research that ensured that participant were free to skip a question
and event quit the survey whenever they wanted.

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6 Results and discussion
6.1 Data presentation and findings
Age test
Figure: Age of the participant and frequency distribution graph
Table: Descriptive statistics regarding the age of the participants

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The descriptive statistics shows the mean value at approximately 29. Therefore, the
mean age of the participants is 29. The age of 29 in the bandwidth of 14 to 84, indicates a
data which tends to be towards 14.
Knowledge test
Level of education
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid Attended high school 40 14.5 14.7 14.7
High school graduate 83 30.1 30.4 45.1
TAFE 40 14.5 14.7 59.7
Trades school graduate 13 4.7 4.8 64.5
Undergraduate degree 71 25.7 26.0 90.5
Postgraduate degree 26 9.4 9.5 100.0
Total 273 98.9 100.0
Missing System 3 1.1
Total 276 100.0
Table: Educational Qualification and statistical distribution

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Figure: Educational qualification and percentage distribution graph
The frequency distribution of the respondents shows that the education does not has
any significant changes with the percentage of respondents.
Gender test

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Figure: Male vs Female comparison graph regarding blood donation
Table: Tendency comparison of blood donation between Male and Female

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Table: Chi Squire Test on Male and Female participation in blood donation
The expected count of 0% cells in T test is less than 5 and the minimum expected
count is 7.62. It means the Chi squire test is acceptable to evaluate the results. In this case the
Alpha value is 0.05 however the person chi square test shows 0.149 in asymptotic significant.
Therefore, the statistical differences in men and women trends in blood donation is not
significant.
Psychology
Table: Emotional differences between male and female regarding blood donation

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Table: Independent sample test on participant’s emotion
Both equal variance of intention of donating blood with emotion has the 2 tailed
significant value of 0.013. This value is lower that the alpha value which is 0.05. Therefore,
the emotion has significant impact on decision making for donating blood. At the same time,
the group statistics the mean value of men in emotional impact on decision is 4.08 and the
mean value of women in emotional impact on decision is 4.58 which is significantly higher
than the male.
Resistance test

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Table: Male and Female Group Statistics on motivations and resistance amongst participants
The mean value of fear of transmitted disease in men is 2.33 and the mean value of
fear of pain in men is 2.44. On the other hand, the mean value of fear of transmitted disease
in women is 2.53 and the mean value of fear of pain in men is 3.25. In both cases, the mean
value of women is higher than men.

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Table: Table: Correlation test on motivations and resistance
As per the correlation data, presentation the 2 tailed significant value for ‘fear of pain’
and fear of caching disease with donation behaviour is 0.00. It means there is significant
relation between the fear of pain and decease and the frequency of donation. In both fear of
pain and fear of caching disease, the person correlation data with the donation behaviour is
negative.
Channel

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Table: Descriptive statistics on influences of communication channels
The mean value of importance of family and Importance of friends are 5.38 and
5.21respectively. The mean value of importance of Television and Importance of radio are
4.35 and 3.87 respectively. In both cases the mean values of importance of family and friends
is higher than the mean value of television and radio.
The mean value of importance of Facebook, Importance of social media and
Importance of internet are 3.55, 2.24 and 4.64 respectively. The mean value of Importance of
newspaper, importance of news paper are 3.25 and 3.77 respectively. Therefore, the mean of
the mean values of social network and internet is (3.55+2.24+4.64) divided by 3 is 3.48
approximately. The mean of the mean values of traditional channels is (3.25+3.77) divided by
2 is 3.51, which is slightly higher than the mean value of mean values of social network and
internet.

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6.2 Hypothesis testing
H1a: Younger generation is more motivated towards blood donation
The descriptive statistics shows the mean value at approximately 29 in the bandwidth
of 14 to 84, indicates a data, which tends to be towards 14. It means most of the participants
are young and interested about blood donation. Therefore, H1a hypothesis is excepted.
H1b: The knowledge makes positive attitude in younger generation towards blood donation
The frequency distribution of the respondents shows that the education does not have
any significant changes with the percentage of respondents. Therefore, there is no chance of
education to make positive attitude in younger people. Therefore, H1b hypothesis is rejected.
H2a: Men are more likely regular blood donor than women
Alpha value is 0.05 however the person chi square test shows 0.149 in asymptotic
significant. Therefore, the statistical differences in men and women trends in blood donation
are not significant. Therefore, there is no chance of men to be more likely a regular blood
donor. Therefore, H2a hypothesis is rejected.
H2b: Females are more likely to make decision to donate with their emotion than men are
Both equal variance of intention of donating blood with emotion has the 2 tailed
significant value of 0.013. This value is lower that the alpha value which is 0.05. Therefore,
the emotion has significant impact on decision making for donating blood. At the same time,
the group statistics the mean value of men in emotional impact on decision is 4.08 and the
mean value of women in emotional impact on decision is 4.58, which is significantly higher
than the male. Therefore, more of the women like to make decision with their emotion than
men. Hence, H2b hypothesis is accepted.

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H3a: Fear of transmittable disease and pain is more important to females than males
The mean value of fear of transmitted disease and the mean value of fear of pain, in
both cases the mean value of women is higher than men. That means women have more fear
of transmittable disease and pain than male. Therefore, H3a hypothesis is accepted.
H3b: Fear of transmittable disease and pain lowers the intentions of blood donation
There is significant relation between the fear of pain and decease and the frequency of
donation. In both fear of pain and fear of caching disease, all the collections of person
correlation data with the donation behaviour are negative. Therefore, fear of pain and fear of
caching disease has negative impact on donating frequency. Hence, H3b hypothesis is
accepted.
H4a: Family and friends are the more effective communication channel then Television and
radio
The mean value of importance of family and Importance of friends is higher than the
mean value of importance of Television and Importance of radio. Therefore, Family and
friends is the more effective communication channel for most of the participants then
Television and radio. Hence, H4a hypothesis is accepted.
H4b: Internet and social media are more effective communication channel then conventional
channel
The mean of the mean values of social network and internet is 3.48 approximately.
The mean of the mean values of traditional channels is 3.51. The mean value of conventional
media is higher than the mean value of mean values of social network and internet. Hence,
conventional channel is more effective then Internet and social media as per the most of the
participant’s answers. Therefore, H4b hypothesis is rejected.

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7 Conclusion and recommendation
7.1 Conclusion
As per the findings, it can be concluded that a large section of blood donors are
avoiding the blood donating activity because of their fear of occasional blood transmissible
diseases. Community welfare, self esteem, social attitude, behaviour, knowledge, perspective
can be the potential regulators that motivate or de-motivate a person about blood donation.
Various social and communal information channels such as friends, family, social cultures
also motivate the potential blood donor to make a positive decision. It has been also found
that, women blood donors are influenced by their emotion.
7.2 Recommendations
In order to increase the awareness in target population several recommended activities
can be executed. The blood donation awareness should be presented more in printed and
traditional media along with the digital media platform. The government and NGO
organisation should make multiple awareness campaign to reduce the fear and miss
perception about transmitted disease and pain within the community (Guiddi et al., 2015).
7.3 Limitation
The limitations of this research are that most of the research data is focused on
Australian citizen especially who live in metropolitan or urban area. It has limited the
potential visibility and tangibility of research results and findings. The research has focused
excessively on the cause behind the perspective of target population in spite of finding
suggestion for making awareness and motivation for blood donation practice.

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Reference
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donors and barriers concerning blood donation in Jordan. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 116, 2146-2154.
Aldamiz-echevarria, C., & Aguirre-Garcia, M. S. (2014). A behavior model for blood donors
and marketing strategies to retain and attract them. Revistalatino-americana de
enfermagem, 22(3), 467-475.
Alfieri, S., Guiddi, P., Marta, E., &Saturni, V. (2016). Economic crisis and blood donation:
How are donors' motivations changing?. Transfusion and Apheresis Science, 54(3),
396-400.
Appiah, B., Bates, I., Owusu-Ofori, S., & Dunn, A. (2013). Culturally relevant
communication interventions to promote voluntary blood donations in Ghana: an
observational, interview-based study. The Lancet, 382, 8.
Bednall, T. C., Bove, L. L., Cheetham, A., & Murray, A. L. (2013). A systematic review and
meta-analysis of antecedents of blood donation behavior and intentions. Social
science & medicine, 96, 86-94.
Bednall, T. C., &Bove, L. L. (2011). Donating blood: a meta-analytic review of self-reported
motivators and deterrents. Transfusion medicine reviews, 25(4), 317-334.
Beerli‐Palacio, A., & Martín‐Santana, J. D. (2009). Model explaining the predisposition to
donate blood from the social marketing perspective. International Journal of
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 14(3), 205-214.
Griffin, D., Grace, D., &O'Cass, A. (2014). Blood donation: comparing individual
characteristics, attitudes, and feelings of donors and nondonors. Health marketing
quarterly, 31(3), 197-212.
Goncalez, T. T., Sabino, E. C., Chen, S., Salles, N. A., Chamone, D. A., McFarland, W., &
Murphy, E. L. (2008). Knowledge, attitudes and motivations among blood donors in
Sao Paulo, Brazil. AIDS and Behavior, 12(1), 39.
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Guiddi, P., Alfieri, S., Marta, E., &Saturni, V. (2015). New donors, loyal donors, and regular
donors: which motivations sustain blood donation?. Transfusion and Apheresis
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Healy, J., & Murphy, M. (2017). Social Marketing: The Lifeblood of Blood Donation?.
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technologies. World Health Organization, 64(7), 66-71.
Lucky, T. T., Keller, A. J., Seed, C. R., Lee, J., Styles, C., Pink, J. and Wilson, D. P. (2014).
A refined method for estimating the size of the potential blood donor pool in
Australia. Transfusion, 54(10), 2445-2455. https://doi-
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donors.pdf

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Appendix- reflection:
Blood donation has been identified as a noble cause, however on comparing the
global statistical scenario it can be predicted that there is an acute shortage of blood donors
across the world. It should further be noted that there is a primary shortage of blood donors in
developed countries such as U.S, U.K and Australia. In association to the mentioned fact, it
should further be stated that, every year 34.7% deaths occur because of shortage of blood
supply while handling emergency cases with heavy loss of blood. While working on the
research I could successfully evaluate the potential factors that have contributed towards the
reduction in the number of blood donors across the world. According to my perspective, two
major factors that have contributed towards the development of the scenario would
essentially incorporate the lack of motivation to donate blood and the societal barriers. In
order to clearly develop an idea about the societal barriers that have affected the thought
process of the people while donating blood, survey responses were evaluated. The survey
responses were assessed on the basis of the secondary data source through a systematic
literature review. It was seen that the major factors included emotional elements such as
phobia from syringes and needles, superstitious belief that donating blood would ultimately
lead to anaemia. Further, it could also be perceived that there was an immense lack of
motivation among the people to voluntarily donate blood and save a life. This could be
strongly linked to the lack of awareness about the importance of donating blood and the
positive outcome associated with it.
I proceeded with my designed research idea to evaluate the factors that play a role in
discouraging people from donating blood. Through my research plan I aimed to identify and
evaluate the factors such as the demographical, social, emotional and economic factors that
have a role in developing hesitation in people to donate blood. Despite the Australian

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government organising regular health and wellness camps and blood donation campaigns, the
reluctant attitude of the people in donating blood was a serious matter to speculate upon. In
order to conduct the research I followed a quantitative study design where in I incorporated
the survey method to evaluate responses obtained from the people about their unwillingness
in donating blood. I could specifically deduce that a wide range of societal myths were
responsible for the prevalence of the negative thought process in people about blood
donation. Factors such as the fear of developing STI on account of being pricked by an
infected needle, phobia from syringes and needles and becoming anaemic on donating blood
are some of the common mythical beliefs that exist and act as primary social barriers. From
the research findings, I would like to conclude the fact that there is an increasing need to
spread awareness so as to improve motivation and convince people to participate in blood
donation. In order to spread awareness I would like to counsel people through awareness
workshops and would also donate blood in blood donation camps so as to set a positive
example for people and encourage them.