ANALYSIS OF BLOOD DONOR DEFERRAL PATTERN AT BLOOD CENTRES OF TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL IN CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU-A RETROSPECTIVE CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

Objective: Even though blood transfusion is a life-saving procedure, selecting a blood donor whose blood is safe for the recipient patient while avoiding adverse donor reaction is paramount in blood transfusion services. During this process, donors can get deferred which leads to loss of precious blood units. This cross-sectional retrospective study was designed to learn and analyze the reasons for deferral of blood donors at tertiary care hospital blood centres. Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study with analysis of data for one year (April 2024 to March 2025) in May 2025. Blood donor details from Kalaignar Centenary Hospital blood centre and Government Royapettah Hospital blood centre at Chennai, Tamil Nadu were collected from Donor questionnaire forms and deferred donor register. Data was entered in Microsoft excel and analysed. Results: Among 7877 blood donors who had registered at the blood centres during study period, donor deferral rate was 2.73%(n=215/7877) which was more common in males (78.6%, n=169/215). Most common reason of temporary deferral was low Haemoglobin (28.1%, n=43/153) followed by Hypertension (12.42%, n=19/153). Among the permanent deferrals who were all males (100%, n=62/62), the most common reason was seroreactivity to Hepatitis B virus (62.9%, n=39/62). Conclusion: Our study findings suggest that more awareness about donation criteria and health education in population are needed, to avoid blood donor deferrals. Effective measures need to be established to bring back the temporarily deferred donors into blood donation donor pool.