Abstract

Donating blood is a deed of human beings and as such is governed by human behavioural laws, if these exist. Blood banks aim at influencing people’s behaviour as to motivate them to donate and keep on donating, of course, provided this is a medically safe and sound action. But why, on earth, would anyone start donating blood and, even more interesting, would anyone keep on donating blood. To understand a little bit more about motivators and barriers to donating blood, at Sanquin, the Department of Donor Studies started doing research in this field a decade or so ago. This seminar will review results of this research line going down from general behaviour aspects such as altruism, through cross cultural aspects into cross-sectional population and intervention studies on several behavioural issues such as show/no-show, return, lapse and coping with adverse events.