Sustainable Blood Donation: An Analysis of Motives, Impediments and Way Forward in Sokoto State, Nigeria

Around 234 million major operations are performed worldwide every year, 63 million traumatic injury surgeries, 31 million cancer treatments, and 10 million pregnancy-based problems occur and need blood transfusions. Thus there is need for voluntary blood donation, which is the recognized way of getting blood safely and accessibly. Sokoto state is among the states that grapple with low voluntary blood donation availability due to many factors. The objective of this paper is to determine the motives, impediments, and solutions to obtain 100% voluntary blood donation in Sokoto State, Nigeria. 40 voluntary blood donors, and 100 key informants drawn from community health and medical laboratory workers were recruited in Sokoto state using convenience sampling, in a crossectional descriptive fashion. The gathered data was analyzed using thematic content analysis, frequency and percentage were calculated. The result of interview with regular, voluntary donor individuals were revealed, all the respondents were Muslims, males, Hausa/ Fulani, and Secondary school leavers. The age was 18 and above. 90% of the respondents submitted that they donate blood for the sake of God Almighty and 10% revealed that they do it to help others .These are the motives and have religious undertones. The key informants were interviewed. Therein, the forms of blood donations revealed were: replacement (80%), paid (40%), and voluntary (20%). On question “what motivates people to donate blood?". They admitted: awareness/ education (50%), religious/leaders (20%), curiosity to help the health of donors (10%), and curiosity to help others (10%).Key informants were asked viz, “what are impediments to voluntary blood donation?” They revealed lack of awareness (60%), and fear (40%). There were problems in the laboratory where donations are carried out. They include lack of light (40%), and lack of storage facilities (20%). Conclusively, this study revealed that, lack of awareness, fear and lack of light or storage equipments are the impediments to sustainable voluntary blood donation in Sokoto State, Nigeria. The way forward are to create awareness, more attention should be awarded to healthcare provisions especially in rural dwellings