Background

An aging population, as well as a shift toward more selfishness instead of altruism, poses challenges to the availability of blood and blood products. Although restrictive transfusion policies and patient blood management have been introduced in the last decade, consistent and constant efforts must be taken to recruit new donors in order to compensate for the loss of long-time regular donors.

Methods

The objective of this retrospective study was to identify patterns and changes in first-time donors in Upper Austria between 2002, 2012 and 2022. A descriptive analysis using data from 138.841 donors were compared with demographic data from Statistik Austria. Blood donors were categorized and evaluated based on the following criteria: first-time donors, repeat donors, gender, and age. Furthermore, the donors were assigned to the 15 political districts (rural area) and 3 statuary cities (urban area).

Results

The average age of the population in Upper Austria was under 41 in 2002 In 2022, this was more than 43 years.Between 2002 and 2022, the ratio of first-time donors increased. (+28.8%), with this is mainly due to female first-time donors (proportion of first-time donors - 2002: 14.5%, 2012: 15.7%, 2022: 18.6%). With regard to the age of first-time donors, it became apparent that this has changed significantly over the last 20 years:

see Table 1

Although the proportion of first-time donors in urban areas decreased by about 15% between 2002 and 2022, the overall number of blood donors in urban areas increased from 6.7% (2002) to 18.3% (2022)

Conclusion

Over the past 20 years, the age of first-time donors in Upper Austria has increased continuously. Numerous measures such as holding educational events, guided tours at the blood bank, digitalization of the process such as the introduction of an app are being made. These efforts help to raise awareness among more young people about the topic of blood and voluntary blood donation in order to be in a position to guarantee 100% supply security for our patients in the future.

Offenlegung Interessenkonflikt:

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.