Background: Blood is an essential part of human life and blood donation has become a necessity that every society must take into consideration. Health care professionals have a major responsibility in raising community awareness on blood donation.
Objective: This study aims to find out the knowledge and attitude of undergraduate medical students on blood donation and to determine the effectiveness of positive deviance (PD) approach.
Methodology: This institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted as a part of World AIDS Days celebration by Red Ribbon club among 414 undergraduate students using convenient sampling technique. A baseline and endline survey were conducted using a pre-structured validated questionnaire. To address the knowledge gap PD approach was used for the students who had voluntarily donated blood, volunteered in providing health education, and shared their experience to their peers. Ethical principals were adhered.
Results: The mean age of the students was 20.4 ± 1.2 years. Most respondents had moderate knowledge on blood donation and positivity attitude towards the same. The key finding of our study is that about 45 students (10.9%) have donated blood till now. As a result of PD training session more than half of them volunteered to donate blood in the future.
Conclusion: This study shows that awareness about blood donation were minimal among the medical students with misconceptions. After PD approach, the willingness was increased from 10% to 66%. Thus, PD approach builds capacity and leadership in volunteers is considered as the best approach for behavior change among their own peers.
Keywords: Blood donation; Medical students; Positive deviance approach; Red Ribbon Club; Undergraduate.
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