Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Haemovigilance among Health care Professionals in North Karnataka

Abstract

Haemovigilance Programme of India was launched in 2012 with the purpose to identify, analyse and learn the complications related to transfusion and blood donation, in order to avoid such complications in future. It is essential to identify the adverse transfusion reactions to reduce the incidence and make transfusion easier. Thereare rare reports available about knowledge, attitude, and practice of healthcare professionals towards haemovigilance. A prospective questionnaire survey was conducted for a period of three months in 100 Healthcare Professionals. Data was collected using pre-validated questionnaire and that questionnaire emphasized on knowledge, attitude and practice of healthcare professionals towards haemovigilance. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics. From all the Participants, most of them were in the age group of 20-30 years i.e., 64% and 36% were physicians and 34% pharmacists. Among them 67% were aware about Haemovigilance and 64% did not have knowledge about how to report transfusion reaction. From the depicted results 44% had documented blood transfusion reaction, 56% didn’t document. Factors discouraging reaction, 56% of them had fear of consequences and 56% healthcare professionals said that due to lack of time they didn’t report any transfusion reaction. 86% participants opted thathealth care professionals should be trained in reporting. Most of healthcare professionals have a positive attitude towards transfusion reaction reporting but knowledge regarding the haemovigilance concept was poor and the majority of them never reported adverse transfusion reaction. There is a need for training program to strengthen the haemovigilance system, especially adverse transfusion reaction reporting.