Assessing Acceptability of Short Message Service Based Interventions towards Becoming Future Voluntary Blood Donors.

All blood bank services, especially those of developing countries, face a major shortfall of blood donations due to lack of voluntary blood donors. Our study aims to evaluate the acceptability of Short Message Service based interventions towards becoming voluntary blood donors among medical university students of Karachi, Pakistan. Methods. A total of 350 medical students were approached in medical universities of Karachi, Pakistan, using a nonprobability convenient sampling technique. Data collectors administered a self-made questionnaire to each participant using an interview based format. All data was recorded and analyzed on SPSS 16. Results. 350 participants, having a mean age of 21.47 ± 1.36, were included in our study with 30.6% (107/350) being males and 69.4% (243/350) being females. 93.4% (327/350) of participants agreed that donating blood was healthy, but only 26% had donated blood in the past with 79.1% donating voluntarily. 65.7% (230/350) of the participants agreed to take part in Short Message Service based behavioral interventions to become voluntary blood donors with 69.7% (244/350) also agreeing that Short Message Service reminders will promote them to donate blood more often. Conclusion. With university students willing to become voluntary blood donors, Pakistani blood banks can carry out Short Message Service based interventions to encourage them to donate blood.

Inpatient satisfaction at tertiary care public hospitals of a metropolitan city of Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the satisfaction of in-patients towards quality of service provision and environment of public-sector hospitals. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted in four major public-sector hospitals of Karachi from December 2010 to February 2012. The questionnaire, besides the demographic details, also had 5-point Likert scale questions regarding satisfaction of patients with doctors, staff, administration and the hospital environment. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis and results were expressed as frequencies with percentages. RESULTS: Of the 710 subjects in the study, 475(67%) agreed that their doctors checked them with concentration and care. Staff was reported as being kind natured and well-mannered by 423(59.6%) and 451(63.5%) patients respectively. However, 414(58.3%) were not pleased with the sanitary condition of the hospital. Only 225(31.7%) got comfortable beds, while 498(70.14%) patients found bugs in beds. In terms of overall satisfaction 452(63.7%) were satisfied with the staff, 463(65.2%) with doctors, and 385(54.2%) with the hospital environment. CONCLUSION: Patients were relatively satisfied with the staff, but sanitary conditions and hospital environment were a concern for majority of the patients.