Comparative analysis of hematological parameters of first-time and repeat blood donors: Experience of a blood bank in southern Nigeria

Introduction: The safety of a blood transfusion practice is anchored on safe blood from a healthy donor, while further protecting the donor from future harm. This study aimed to evaluate the hematological parameters of blood donors in view of their donor category to aid in assessing the safety threshold in terms of donation frequency.Methods: This study made use of the descriptive cross-sectional design. The blood donors were bled and their samples analyzed using a hematology autoanalyzer.Results: A total of 178 male blood donors were recruited. Most of the donors were aged 18 to 39 years and were mostly students. A greater part of them were repeat donors who had donated blood more than four times. First-and second-time donors constituted the major-ity of the voluntary donors. While the total red cell count was significantly lower in repeat third-time donors, the hemoglobin and hematocrit of the first-time donors were signifi-cantly higher than those of the repeat fourth-time donors. The mean corpuscular hemoglo-bin (MCH) and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) of the first-time donors were significantly higher than those of the repeat fifth-time donors. The red cell dis-tribution width (RDW) and mean platelet volume (MPV) were significantly lower in the first-time donors from those of the sixth-and seventh-time donors, respectively. Most of the fifth-time donors have subclinical anemia. There was more subclinical anemia in commer-cial donors than in voluntary donors.Conclusion: Repeat donors more than fifth-time donors are at risk of donation-induced iron deficiency anemia.(c) 2021 Associacao Brasileira de Hematologia, Hemoterapia e Terapia Celular. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).