Designing and testing an ethnic‐ancestry question for Australian blood donors: Acceptability, feasibility, and understanding

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, and understanding of a donor ethnic‐ancestry question with Australian blood donors. BACKGROUND: Ethnic‐ancestry assists blood collection agencies to meet the demand for rare blood‐types. However, there is no standard ethnicity question used by health/blood services around the world and we do not know how blood donors in Australia will respond to being asked for this information. METHODS/MATERIALS: A survey and ethnic‐ancestry question was administered to a sample of donors (n = 506) to evaluate their views on being asked for their ethnic‐ancestry, test a comprehensive ethnic‐ancestry list, and determine the level of information required by donors. RESULTS: Donors reported being very comfortable providing their ethnic‐ancestry and the majority of donors found an ethnic‐ancestry option they were happy with (91.3%). Overall donors reported a high level of understanding of why ethnic‐ancestry was important to blood donation. However, when provided more information on why ethnic‐ancestry is required, donors reported increased understanding. CONCLUSION: The findings from this study demonstrated that it is acceptable and feasible to introduce a comprehensive ethnic‐ancestry question for Australian blood donors. We also found that a greater understanding is achieved when a more comprehensive explanation for inclusion of the question is provided.