Blood donation within the family: the transmission of values and practices

This article presents the results of our study, which aimed to examine the role of family in the transmission of practices and values associated with blood donation.

Fifty-two qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted in the province of Quebec, Canada. They were categorized into three distinct dyads (one parent and one child interviewed per dyad): 1) parent donor/child donor (10 dyads); 2) parent nondonor/child donor (8 dyads); and 3) parent donor/child nondonor (8 dyads).

Our results point to two kinds of families: in the first type, blood donation has been an integral "part of life" for generations and we can observe a process of transmission--a set of practices that encompasses imitation or modeling. In the second type of family, the act of donating blood was perceived and defined as an individual one, in the sense of personal, and sometimes even as a private gesture: a majority of young donors started giving at their colleges' blood drives without discussing it with their families.