Socio-Economic Determinants of Blood Donation in Tanzania

The study was determined to look on the relationship between socio-economic determinants and blood donation in Tanzania. It involved a sample of 128 respondents in which binary logistic regression results showed sex of respondents, level of education and religious beliefs to have a positively relationship with blood donation at 1%, 10%, 10% level respectively, with p values of 0.007, 0.077, 0.094 as theory suggested. Health status, cultural beliefs, fear for HIV test results, and health insurance were negatively related with blood donation at 1%, 5%, 10%, 1% level with p values of 0.000, 0.011, 0.070, 0.012, respectively, as per assumption. However, age, strong social network at community, employment status, and level of income were not significant determinants. Conclusively, blood donation was largely determined by sex, level of education, health status, cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, fear for HIV test results and health insurance. To increase blood donation, females must be encouraged, emphasis on education, eradication of the myths and misconception about blood donation, partnerships between national blood transfusion and religious bodies, need for more community’s awareness about blood donation so as to alleviate unfounded fear (i.e. fear for HIV test results), need of improving health status of the people and donor recruitments programs strategies must be improved.