Quality of the blood donation campaign in the military: A sample from Turkey

In this study, the conformity of blood donation services performed by Turkish Red Crescent Mobile Medical Team in a Basic Military Training Centre to quality standards was researched and the results were discussed by taking the principles of biomedical ethics into consideration.

This descriptive study was conducted at the Basic Military Training Centre, Canakkale, Turkey. In total, 269 voluntary non-remunerated blood donors who made blood donation between 10 and 12 August 2015 formed the population of the study. All of the donors were recruits who had joined the army to carry out their military service. A questionnaire for assessing the quality of the blood donation services was administered to the participants after the blood donation. SPSS 15.0 software package was used for data analysis.

In the study, 232 voluntary non-remunerated blood donors were reached with a response rate of 86.2%. It was seen that the phlebotomists in the mobile medical team followed the quality standards in the blood donation process with the rate of 91.8% to 100%. However, outstanding omissions were found in informing the donors about blood donation process.

In blood donation campaigns conducted in the institutions such as military units, the quality standards developed in line with the principles of biomedical ethics should not be neglected citing some reasons such as excessive numbers of donors, time limitations and organisational deficiencies. Increasing the quality in blood donation services will increase both donor satisfaction and their motivation to donate blood again in the future.