Physiological and hormonal stress response during blood donation in healthy voluntary donors

The objective of this study was to assess the physiological and hormonal stress response during blood donation in healthy voluntary donors.

Blood donation is a stressful event which can cause adverse reactions in this altruistic attempt. This can lead to a reduction in the precious donor population, and there are very less studies on levels of physiological (heart rate and blood pressure [BP]) and hormonal stress in the blood donation. Our attempt is to understand whether there is really a quantifiable physiological and/or hormonal stress during the process of blood donation and whether responses differed in terms of between age, gender, and experience of donors in the blood donation.

Randomly selected eligible seventy whole blood donors were selected for the study after obtaining written informed consent. They were medically assessed before selecting and saliva samples were collected just before needle insertion for assessment of salivary cortisol levels. A 2 ml blood sample for serum cortisol assessment from the blood bag tubing at the end of the donation was also collected.

Stress indicators during donation are compared between different age groups as well as experience of blood donation, and no association is found between them. BP is found to have an association to gender, and salivary cortisol levels were found to be higher in 69 out of 70 blood donors.

Salivary cortisol can be used as a tool for acute stress assessment in blood donation. The response patterns differ between age, women and men, and first-time versus experienced donors.