Only a small proportion of donors donated more than they normally would during the COVID\19 period. much less likely to donate (OR?=?0540; em P /em \value?=?0006). Furthermore, those that were adherent to COVID guidelines were also less likely to donate (OR?=?0583; em P /em \value?=?0000). Discussion We suggest that blood collection services consider specialist campaigns that focus on the altruistic motivation of donors during the crisis and that they continue to communicate the additional safety measures in place with the aim of reducing the fear of infection whilst donating blood. strong class=”kwd-title” Keywords: blood collection, donor motivation, donor recruitment, Soluflazine donors Introduction The COVID\19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented impact on blood transfusion and collection with large\scale disruption to both the supply and demand for blood. Early evidence suggests European countries and across the world have experienced initial drops in whole blood donations, despite centres implementing extra safety measures and public appeals across Europe to encourage continued donation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Research from Hong Kong and China has suggested that anxiety and fear of contracting COVID\19 were deterrents to donating blood [7, 8], which is consistent with findings from studies on the SARS and avian flu outbreaks [9, 10]. Falling donations have been partly mitigated in the short term by the postponement of elective surgeries, but future demand remains unpredictable and is dependent on how the pandemic evolves [1, 11]. Therefore, maintaining blood supplies remains an important public health concern during the pandemic. In the past, donors have responded well to public appeals to donate in situations of perceived exceptional need, such as the September 11 attacks, mass shootings in the United States and bush fires in Australia where large influxes of donors in short periods of time were recorded [11, 12]. Such reactionary spikes have been observed in some settings across Europe and in Brazil in response to general public phone calls to donate [3, 13, 14, 15]. However, motivations that travel such reactions may wane over time and especially so if driven by 1st\time donors [12]. Large interruptions to donation activity may have stark effects for healthcare systems and should be avoided by careful tracking of the supply and demand of blood during these uncertain instances. It is therefore essential to gain an initial perspective within the effect of COVID\19 on blood donors and an understanding of the key aspects of their motivation to donate (or not donate) during this problems. The aim of this paper was to provide early insight into blood donation activity across seven European countries and the motivation of blood donors to donate or not to donate during the 1st phase of the COVID\19 problems. We do this to understand what is driving changes in donation behaviour and which plans might help to restore donation levels. Methods We asked approximately 7000 people about their blood donation activity and motivation to donate or not to donate within the second wave of the Western Covid Survey (ECOS) in June 2020. ECOS is an online survey across seven European countries. Around 1000 people in Soluflazine Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands and the UK, representative of their country, participated in the study. The survey was structured Rabbit Polyclonal to ABHD12B in a way to avoid self\selection, as respondents were not aware of the survey questions beforehand. Participants completed the survey during the period 9C22 June 2020 using on-line Soluflazine panels provided by the market study organization Dynata. Diverse recruiting campaigns reaching out to around 120?000 people were administered online (open recruitment, loyalty programmes, affiliate networks and mobile apps). Survey respondents received payment, which assorted depending on the platform they were recruited through. The survey was programmed in the Qualtrics study suite where quotas were implemented to ensure that the country samples matched national census shares, which were representative in terms of age, sex, region and education level. A declaration of compliance for the project was examined and approved before the start of the project from the Vice Dean for Study according to the terms of use and ethical requirements of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Sociable Sciences in the University or college of Hamburg and the Western Commissions RESPECT Code of Practice [16]. Survey questions and scales Firstly, we asked all participants whether they experienced donated blood during the earlier 10?years before February 2020 (COVID\19 period), and for those that answered yes, we asked how many instances they had donated in the 2 2?years prior to COVID\19. A timeframe of 10?years was used to capture donors that.