According to the WorldHealth Organization, the global landscape of blood donation reveals significant disparities, with high-income countries averaging 31.5 donations annually per 1,000 people, while upper-middle-income countries record 16.4, lower-middle-income countries show just 6.6, and low-income nations lag behind at 5.0 donations per 1,000. Despite successful blood management initiatives in developed regions aimed at curbing the demand for blood products, recent global challenges—including environmental shifts and biological changes—have remarkably intensified the need for blood and its components. Notably, this scenario was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Dengue fever outbreaks, particularly in nations already stressed by limited resources. The escalating demand for critical blood components, such as fresh frozen plasma and platelets, underscores the urgency of enhancing donor recruitment and retention efforts, which are now pivotal. Factors contributing to this increased demand include a growing general population, an increase in elderly individuals, rising instances of hematological malignancies, and road traffic accidents.
Young medical students stand as pivotal future healthcare providers and should be actively encouraged to engage in blood donation, given their understanding of the dire circumstances faced by patients in need of transfusions. In this scholarly endeavor, we aimed to explore and catalog the various reasons that contribute to the hesitancy among some medical students to donate blood. Across the globe, advertising campaigns have highlighted the numerous benefits associated with blood donation while simultaneously working to dispel prevalent myths and misconceptions. To effectively elevate donor recruitment rates, it is crucial to confront and address the negative perceptions and barriers head-on. While nations with developed healthcare systems rely on unpaid volunteers for blood donations, those in developing regions often struggle with scarce resources, resulting in individuals donating primarily when friends or family members require blood.
