Altruism in blood donation: Out of sight out of mind? Closing donation centers influences blood donor lapse.

In this paper, we use register data on all blood donors (n = 259,172) and changes in geographical locations of blood donation centers in the Netherlands over the past decade, to examine the strength of altruistic motivations in blood donation by testing how blood donor behavior changes after the cost of donating in the form of time and inconvenience increases. We examined whether closing donation centers influences blood donor lapse, and whether the risk for lapse varies between donors with different blood groups. A lower lapsing risk for donors with universal, O-negative blood as costs increase is considered as evidence of altruism: continued efforts in making a societal impact despite the increased time commitment would indicate altruism in donor behavior.

Life events and donor lapse among blood donors in Denmark.

Background And Objectives: The likelihood of donating blood changes over the life course, with life events shown to influence entry to and exit from the donor population. While these previous findings provide valuable insights for donor management, blood collection agencies need to be cautious about generalizing findings to other countries as blood donor behaviour is context-specific. To examine cross-country variations in donor behaviour, the repeatability of a previous Dutch study on life events and blood donor lapse is examined by using a sample of Danish donors.

Blood Donation across the Life Course: The Influence of Life Events on Donor Lapse.

This article examines how blood donation loyalty changes across the life course as a result of life events. Previous studies have shown that life events affect involvement in prosocial behavior, possibly as a result of loss of human and social capital. Using registry data from the blood collection agency in the Netherlands, linked to longitudinal survey data from the Donor InSight study (N = 20,560), we examined whether life events are related to blood donor lapse.

(Non-)donor demographics, donation willingness, and the donor career.

Donation willingness is generally high but registering with donor centers lags behind. We need to understand why and when during the life course which groups of individuals are motivated to donate. With this knowledge, we can design targeted recruitment and retention strategies and improve evidence-based donor management.

Individual, contextual and network characteristics of blood donors and non-donors: a systematic review of recent literature.

Background: The ageing population and recent migration flows may negatively affect the blood supply in the long term, increasing the importance of targeted recruitment and retention strategies to address donors. This review sought to identify individual, network and contextual characteristics related to blood donor status and behaviour, to systematically discuss differences between study results, and to identify possible factors to target in recruitment and retention efforts.

Methods: The systematic review was conducted in accordance with a predefined PROSPERO protocol (CRD42016039591).