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Risk‐behavior reporting by blood donors with an automated telephone system
Author(s) -
Fielding Richard,
Lam Tai Hing,
Hedley Anthony
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
transfusion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.045
H-Index - 132
eISSN - 1537-2995
pISSN - 0041-1132
DOI - 10.1111/j.1537-2995.2006.00714.x
Subject(s) - medicine , blood donor , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , donation , family medicine , telephone interview , demography , immunology , social science , sociology , economics , economic growth
BACKGROUND: Donor risk‐behavior assessment is important for blood safety. Few evaluations of automated telephone systems for eliciting risk exposure among voluntary blood donors have been reported. STUDY DESIGN and METHODS: A modified risk‐behavior questionnaire was presented after donation via an automated telephone polling system to 805 of 15,092 Hong Kong Chinese voluntary blood donors. Risk‐behavior rates were compared to those of all other donors (14,287) simultaneously completing the questionnaire in a pencil‐and‐paper format. RESULTS: The telephone group included proportionally more women (46.3% vs. 44.9%), previous donors (93.3% vs. 83.6%), and sexually inactive donors (66.5% vs. 71.2%) with lower educational achievement (60.7% vs. 54.5%). The telephone group demonstrated fewer missing data (mean 1.3%, range 0.4%‐3.1% vs. mean 9.8%, range 8.0%‐14.2%) and more complete demographic detailing, probably accounting for the demographic differences. The telephone group reported higher prevalence rates of needle or syringe sharing (1.5% vs. 0.3%), homosexual and/or bisexual intercourse (4.1% vs. 1.3%), knowing or suspecting that partner had intercourse with another during past year (12.4% vs. 8.5%), and future intention to use blood donation as a means to test for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV; 19.1% vs. 13.7%). There was no difference in knowledge of the HIV window period or proportions visiting or using condoms with commercial sex workers between telephone and pencil‐and‐paper groups. CONCLUSION: This survey with automated telephone screening of potential blood donors revealed increased reporting of risk exposure relative to commonly used paper‐and‐pencil methods. This raises questions of possible underreporting of risk among blood donors screened by paper questionnaire and perhaps face‐to‐face interview.