“Blood for Blood”? Personal Motives and Deterrents for Blood Donation in the German Population

It is crucial to provide updated knowledge about blood (non-)donors, as it is necessary to design targeted interventions with the aim of retaining blood donors and thus contributing to a functioning health system. This study investigates the prevalence and socio-demographic patterning of lifetime blood donation, assessing blood donation intention within the next 12 months and exploring personal motives and deterrents of blood donation qualitatively in the German population. A face-to-face cross-sectional survey with 2531 respondents was conducted, representative of the German population in terms of age, gender, and residency. Closed as well as open questions were asked. Qualitative content analysis was used for coding the qualitative material. Basic descriptive statistics were conducted to address our research questions. More than one-third of the participants reported that they have donated blood at least once in their lifetime. Motives and deterrents were assigned to 10 domains with 50 main categories and 65 sub-categories. The most frequently stated motives for blood donation were “altruism”, “social responsibility”, and “charity”, whereas the most frequently stated deterrents were “health status”, “age”, and “lack of time”. This study provides information to tailor recruitment and reactivation strategies to address donors at different career steps—from non-donor to loyal donor.