Assessment the knowledge of blood transfusion in Iranian nurses of Tehran's hospitals

To investigate the knowledge of nurses about pre and post blood transfusion processes.

To ensure a safe blood transfusion, apart from the role of blood banking to perform safe donation, attention must be paid to equally important but rather neglected factors including nursing practice and knowledge of blood transfusion.

Data was collected using a valid blood transfusion questionnaire consisting of 43 questions. We analysed data using SPSS 22. Percentages and analytical statistics such as Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis were used to report the results. The significant level of p-value was assumed to be <0.05.

In this study, 325 nurses participated and their knowledge scores ranged from 24% to 85% (mean 56.16, standard deviation: 5.92) and the majority of nurses lacked knowledge in pre-transfusion activities. The analysis also revealed there was a significant correlation between the knowledge score and academic degree. Out of all nurses, 48% (N = 156) declared that they need further training in haemovigilance. As the minimum and maximum scored questions, it was revealed that only 39 nurses (12%) have enough knowledge to act properly in case of ambiguous orders; on the other hand, 94% (N = 304) have sufficient knowledge of the agents administered with transfusion. A large proportion of the involved nurses are unaware of the risk of improper identification.

All the efforts taken to prepare a safe and matched blood unit would be futile by inattentive administration of blood. That is why mandatory ongoing blood transfusion training for nurses is required urgently.