Factors Hindering the Healthy Subjects from Attempting Their First Blood Donation : A Cross - Sectional Study among the Citizens of Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia

Background. The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic caused a major impact on blood donation process and supply globally. A lockdown management procedure was launched nationally in Saudi Arabia to manage this global health crisis. The main aim of this study was to determine the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on blood donation services and supply in different regions of Saudi Arabia. Study Design and Methods. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in the blood bank centers of 5 major cities including Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Hail, and Jizan in Saudi Arabia. Demographic and blood characteristics were retrieved from the first 6 months of 2019 (January–June) and compared to the same period of 2020. Results. Our findings showed variation in the characteristics of blood donation and supply among the centers surveyed, as some of these centers were adversely affected, while others showed an increase in the availability of blood products during the pandemic. For example, Jeddah’s center was significantly affected by COVID-19 lockdown whereas Hail’s center showed a significant increase in the analyzed characteristics of blood donation services in 2020 compared to 2019. Overall, there was no major difference among the surveyed centers between 2020 and 2019, and this might be due to the effective management of blood supply and transfusion. Discussion. Although blood supply and transfusion practice was slightly affected at various degree among the surveyed centers, the whole process did not show a significant effect on the overall outcome. This is in fact due to the proper preparedness, management of blood requirements and supplies, and efficient response of the surveyed centers in Saudi Arabia.

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Knowledge and attitude among healthcare workers towards COVID-19: a cross sectional study from Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia

The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries ◽

10.3855/jidc.13083 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (10) ◽

pp. 1090-1097

Author(s):

Talal Qadah

Keyword(s):

Saudi Arabia ◽

Healthcare Workers ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Demographic Characteristics ◽

Clinical Aspects ◽

Sectional Study ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Jeddah City ◽

The Mean ◽

Knowledge And Attitude

Introduction: The emergence of the new Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a major impact on global health system. This cross-sectional study was designed to appraise the knowledge and attitude of healthcare workers towards COVID-19 and find out their understanding about clinical aspects of the infection. Methodology: A total number of 1023 of healthcare workers responded to an online questionnaire and provided their data between February and March, 2020 in Jeddah city, Western province, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was distributed to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technical staff and administrative staff working in clinical settings. Results: Results revealed that mean scores for knowledge and attitude were 20.793 ± 2.436 and 4.744 ± 0.297 respectively. More than 88% of participants displayed positive knowledge and attitude towards COVID-19. Knowledge data showed that social media and the workplace, were the main sources of information for the majority of respondents. Approximately 99.12% of respondents were aware of the viral pandemic, and the causative agent. Statistically significant association was found when compared the demographic characteristics with the mean knowledge while no statistical signiﬁcance was observed when compared demographic characteristics with the mean attitude score except with marital status. Conclusion: This study showed that healthcare workers had sufficient knowledge and positive attitude towards COVID-19. However, hospital staff should be periodically given sufficient training to effectively cope with such outbreaks in the future.

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