ABSTRACT
A long-term blood supply can only be guaranteed on the condition that new donors are continually being generated from within the population. There have been numerous studies in the field of behavioural psychology in recent decades to determine the psychosocial factors that prompt individuals to develop a blood donation practice and maintain it over the long term (Giles and Cairns 1995; Ferguson 1996; Armitage and Conner 2001; Misje et al. 2005; Godin et al. 2007; France et al. 2007; Sojka and Sojka 2008; Lemmens et al. 2009; Veldhuizen et al. 2011; Bednall and Bove, 2011; Ferguson et al. 2012; Masser et al. 2012). However, although these studies may have made reference to the potential influence of the social context, researchers have not studied it directly. Instead, such influence has always been perceived through the mediation of individual cognition. According to Healy (2006), one must go beyond psychosocial analyses of individual motivations to gain a better understanding of the cultural and institutional factors that shape blood donation practices. This view of the importance of considering blood donation from a more social standpoint is shared by Piliavin and Callero (1991, 179):
To understand the wide-ranging power a social structure can have on blood donation, we must first recognize that blood donation is a social act, which means it cannot be completed alone or in private; it requires the cooperation of a larger community. With this premise we make the assumption that sociological factors independent of the psychological decision-making process affect the community pattern of blood donation. This means, for example, that changes in the rate of blood donation by a particular social group or category of donors cannot be fully explained at the level of the individual.
As was noted in the previous chapter, no one can give blood without a blood collection organization having first set up a place for them to do so. Such organizations are also responsible for establishing qualification criteria as well as temporary and permanent deferral guidelines. Future blood recipients do not make direct requests for donations; rather, it is hospitals that assess needs and submit requests to blood product suppliers. Thus, the organizations which serve as intermediaries between blood donors and recipients play a key role in the blood flow process. In a study carried out with plasma and platelet donors, Henrion (2003) observed that this way of proceeding allows donors to forge ties with the staff at blood collection centres but never allows donors and recipients to create direct ties to one another. This may lead donors to think they are giving their blood to the organization itself rather than to future recipients, whom they have difficulty imagining.