SOCIAL MARKETING ON REGULAR VOLUNTARY BLOOD DONATION IN GHANA

ABSTRACT Donating blood regularly and voluntarily is the World Health Organisations remedy to the Worlds perennial blood shortage. Globally, there has been a surge in interventions aimed at encouraging individuals to adopt this behaviour (donating blood regularly and voluntarily). This current study seeks to apply Social Marketing using perceived attributes of innovation (a diffusion of innovation concept) to understand the factors influencing the diffusion and adoption of regular voluntary blood donation as a behaviour. Stratified sampling was used for the survey. A structured questionnaire was administered to 272 undergraduate students from University of Ghana, and the data was analysed using multiple regression. The results of the study reveal that perceived attributes of innovation elements predict 56.7% of variance in behaviour change towards regular voluntary blood donation. However, among the constructs of perceived attributes of innovation, compatibility (β = 0.420, t= 7.587, p=0.000, < 0.05) was the strongest predictor of behaviour change towards regular voluntary blood donation followed by perceived advantage (β = 0.198, t= 3.773, p=0.000, < 0.05), Complexity (β = -0.152, t= -2.628, p=0.009, < 0.05) and Perceived risk (β = -0.140, t= -2.723, p=0.007, < 0.05). The study therefore recommends that in carrying out blood donation interventions based on the perceived attributes of innovation in Ghana; social marketers should focus on addressing compatibility issues associated with blood donation. Also, social marketers should highlight the advantages of blood donation, liaise with policy makers to reduce blood donation complexities and focus on minimizing perceived blood donation risk. However, the study focused on undergraduate students from the University of Ghana; hence its findings cannot be generalised to the entire Ghanaian population. Future Research should focus on other segments of the Ghanaian society. Finally, qualitative research may be useful in exploring other factors that affect the adoption of regular voluntary blood donation as a behaviour.