Clinical transfusion practice in Ethiopia

Previous studies have shown clinicians' knowledge and practice are suboptimal across all major steps in the clinical transfusion process. Like other settings, limited information is available in Ethiopia. Therefore, we conducted a study to assess clinicians' transfusion medicine knowledge and clinical practice.

A cross-sectional study was conducted at two academic hospitals to examine the correlation between transfusion medicine knowledge and clinical use of blood. Clinicians (n = 232), selected using a random sampling technique, completed a self-administered, structured knowledge assessment. A sampled (n = 152) subset of these clinicians was assessed for appropriate clinical use of blood using a predefined checklist. Student's t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and chi-square test were used. Statistical significance was assessed by 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and p values <0.05.

Clinicians' mean knowledge score increased significantly by level of specialization. Out of a maximum score of 80, the mean ± standard deviation (SD) score for general practitioners was 38.1 (SD: ±6.2) while the score for specialists was 45.1 (SD: ±5.8), p = 0.001. Clinicians trained on transfusion guidelines had higher scores (46.6, SD: ±7.2) compared to untrained clinicians (40.3, SD: ±7.0), p = 0.001. Clinical use of blood was deemed appropriate in 41.4% [95% CI: 33.6%-49.2%] of cases. Appropriate clinical use of blood was associated with a higher mean knowledge (43.7, SD: ±7.1) than observed in inappropriate clinical use (40.7, SD: ±8.3) in 58.6%, p = 0.02.

Better knowledge of transfusion medicine is associated with better transfusion medicine practice. This underscores the importance of implementing transfusion medicine training in Ethiopia.