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Strategies to recruit plateletpheresis donors from a registry of HLA‐typed, unrelated, bone marrow donors
Author(s) -
Bolgiano D.C.,
Smith S.,
Slichter S.J.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
transfusion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.045
H-Index - 132
eISSN - 1537-2995
pISSN - 0041-1132
DOI - 10.1046/j.1537-2995.1993.33893342751.x
Subject(s) - plateletpheresis , medicine , human leukocyte antigen , bone marrow , bone marrow transplantation , histocompatibility testing , immunology , apheresis , antigen , platelet
Rising demand for single‐donor platelet components—from random donors, to maintain platelet inventories, or from HLA‐compatible donors, to support alloimmune platelet‐refractory patients—necessitated increasing the size of a community plateletpheresis donor registry. This study compares two strategies for recruiting whole‐blood donors into a plateletpheresis program. The whole‐blood donors who were asked to participate in this study had recently joined an unrelated bone marrow donor registry and had been HLA‐typed as part of that process. An in‐person recruitment strategy, which was time‐intensive for the apheresis donor coordinator, served as the standard. A by‐mail strategy involved the mailing of recruitment materials to marrow‐donor registry participants. Marrow‐donor registry participants were approached about apheresis participation after they had indicated an interest in the plateletpheresis program by returning a tear‐off section of an informational brochure that was sent to them along with their marrow‐donor registry materials. A total of 852 marrow‐donor registry participants were randomly assigned to one of two recruitment strategies, and the recruitment rates were the same (46%) for both methods. In addition, levels of apheresis participation and attrition rates of donors recruited by either strategy were comparable. Thus, the simple strategy of mailing information about a plateletpheresis program is a very cost‐effective method of recruiting donors.