Abstract
Background: Blood donation remain a unique act to save the lives of people who encounter critical surgical and medical conditions. Since the request for blood supply is extremely high, a shortage of blood causes significant morbidity and mortality. To increase blood supply and maintain an adequate quantity of blood, regular and volunteer blood donation practice is needed. Ethiopia is one of the lowest annual donation rates which is 0.8/1000 population. This study assesses factors affecting willingness to donate blood among Hawassa Town's southern Population.Objectives: To assess the factors affecting willingness to blood donation among Hawassa town population Southern, Ethiopia. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional investigation was conducted in Hawassa Town in November 2020. A multi-stage sampling procedure was utilized to select the study population. At Stage one, three Kebeles are taken from a total of 32 Kebele, at stage two implementing a systematically sampling method used to draw the total sample size, proportional to the population of each kebele and each study unit are selected randomly from Each household. Data were collected using a structured interviewer questionnaire. Data entered and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Result: A total of 633 participants was included in the final analysis (response rate = 100%). Among which 212(33.5%) were female and 421 (66.5%) were Male. The average age was 30.95 ±2.0 years.Among the study participants, 490(77.4) are willing to donate blood in the future, and 125(22.9%) of them had blood donation practices in the past. The most prominent factors that affect the willingness of the participants for blood donation were, Unfit to donate, fear of needle prick and Not approached to donated (45.2%, 38.5%, and 11.7%) respectively. Most of the respondents 382 (60.3%) reported that voluntary donor is the best source of protected blood. Desire to aid other and age of study Participant age greater 25 years are significantly associated factor for increased willingness to blood donated (AOR 2.146 (0.028, 0.753) and (AOR = 1.8 (95% CI 1.1, 3.0) respectively.Conclusion: Only minor proportion of the participants donated blood in the past, but Majority of the participant was willing to donate blood in the future. The crucial factors that participants are not willing to donate blood are Unfit to donate, fear of needle prick, and Not approached to donate. There is a need to improve awareness on who and when a person capable to donate blood and organizing campaigns to increase awareness on the importance of blood donation for those who are willing to donate blood in the future, to produce a pool of eligible blood donors.