The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations

During a crisis, society calls for individuals to take prosocial actions that promote crisis management. Indeed, individuals show higher willingness to help after a disaster. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents significant differences as it is an ongoing crisis that affects all individuals and h...

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Autores principales: Veseli, Besarta, Sandner, Sabrina, Studte, Sinika, Clement, Michel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8946670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35324952
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265171
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author Veseli, Besarta
Sandner, Sabrina
Studte, Sinika
Clement, Michel
author_facet Veseli, Besarta
Sandner, Sabrina
Studte, Sinika
Clement, Michel
author_sort Veseli, Besarta
collection PubMed
description During a crisis, society calls for individuals to take prosocial actions that promote crisis management. Indeed, individuals show higher willingness to help after a disaster. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents significant differences as it is an ongoing crisis that affects all individuals and has the potential to pose a direct health threat to anyone. Therefore, we propose that the pandemic may also negatively affect willingness to help, specifically blood donation intentions. It requires a high level of willingness to donate blood beyond the crisis outbreak, as more blood will be needed when postponed surgeries resume. When comparing blood donation intentions from a pre-pandemic study to results from a six-wave (bi-weekly) panel study conducted in Germany during the first pandemic phase (April to June 2020), we find lower medium and long-term blood donation intentions. While active donors show increased awareness of ability and eligibility to donate at the beginning of the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic, they feel significantly less able to donate as the pandemic progresses. Furthermore, inactive donors’ perceived ability to donate significantly decreases in the pandemic phase compared to the pre-pandemic phase. Crucially, both active and inactive donors feel less responsible and less morally obliged to donate, resulting in an overall negative pandemic effect on blood donation intentions. The COVID-19 pandemic compromises blood donations endangering the life-saving blood supply. These alarming results offer evidence-based grounds for practical implications for driving donations in the event of a pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-89466702022-03-25 The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations Veseli, Besarta Sandner, Sabrina Studte, Sinika Clement, Michel PLoS One Research Article During a crisis, society calls for individuals to take prosocial actions that promote crisis management. Indeed, individuals show higher willingness to help after a disaster. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents significant differences as it is an ongoing crisis that affects all individuals and has the potential to pose a direct health threat to anyone. Therefore, we propose that the pandemic may also negatively affect willingness to help, specifically blood donation intentions. It requires a high level of willingness to donate blood beyond the crisis outbreak, as more blood will be needed when postponed surgeries resume. When comparing blood donation intentions from a pre-pandemic study to results from a six-wave (bi-weekly) panel study conducted in Germany during the first pandemic phase (April to June 2020), we find lower medium and long-term blood donation intentions. While active donors show increased awareness of ability and eligibility to donate at the beginning of the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic, they feel significantly less able to donate as the pandemic progresses. Furthermore, inactive donors’ perceived ability to donate significantly decreases in the pandemic phase compared to the pre-pandemic phase. Crucially, both active and inactive donors feel less responsible and less morally obliged to donate, resulting in an overall negative pandemic effect on blood donation intentions. The COVID-19 pandemic compromises blood donations endangering the life-saving blood supply. These alarming results offer evidence-based grounds for practical implications for driving donations in the event of a pandemic. Public Library of Science 2022-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8946670/ /pubmed/35324952 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265171 Text en © 2022 Veseli et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Veseli, Besarta
Sandner, Sabrina
Studte, Sinika
Clement, Michel
The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations
title The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations
title_full The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations
title_fullStr The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations
title_full_unstemmed The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations
title_short The impact of COVID-19 on blood donations
title_sort impact of covid-19 on blood donations
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8946670/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35324952
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265171
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