Donor screening question alternatives to men who have sex with men time deferral: Potential impact on donor deferral and discomfort

Sheila F. O’Brien · Mindy Goldman · Pierre Robillard · Lori Osmond · Geneviève Myhal · Élise Roy

31 citations0/0 files storedTransfusion

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Blood donation and transfusion practices HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk

Abstract

Abstract Background Alternative screening questions could permit low‐risk men who have sex with men (MSM) to donate blood without a time deferral. We performed a study to determine the proportion of current donors who may be deferred by various questions and their comfort with them. Study Design and Methods Donors attending collection sites in Canada in January and February 2018 were offered one of two questionnaires but not both. Questionnaire 1 asked about risk behaviors; Questionnaire 2 rated comfort with the questions. Volunteers uncomfortable with questions participated in short qualitative telephone interviews to understand reasons. Quantitative data were analyzed using χ2 statistics. Results Of 36 241 donors attending, 31 904 (88%, Period 1) completed Questionnaire 1; of 34 947, a total of 30 278 (87%, Period 2) completed Questionnaire 2; 294 completed an interview. In the past 3 months 3.1% (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.1%‐3.6%) had more than one partner; 6.0% (95% CI, 5.7%‐6.2%) had a new partner; 6.7% (95% CI, 6.4%‐6.9%) were in a nonexclusive relationship; 11.2% (95% CI, 10.9%‐11.6%) had at least one of these; 3.7% (95% CI, 3.4%‐3.9%) had anal sex; and 62.8% (95% CI, 62.2%‐63.3%) had condomless sex. More than 6% were uncomfortable with each question, but more (17.2%; 95% CI, 16.8%‐17.7%) were uncomfortable with anal sex. Key reasons for discomfort were questions being too personal and unclear safety benefit. Conclusion Most donors are comfortable answering alternative questions (except very personal ones) but question the benefit. Implementing alternative questions would result in substantive deferrals. Other policies such as using an MSM capture question to ask additional questions only to MSM should be considered.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 31 citations exist upstream.

References

2020HIV antiretroviral therapy and prevention use in US blood donors: a new blood safety concern 2019Gay and bisexual men’s views on reforming blood donation policy in Canada: a qualitative study 2011Deferral of males who had sex with other males 2015Who should donate blood? Policy decisions on donor deferral criteria should protect recipients and be fair to donors 2020The evolving blood donor deferral policy for men who have sex with men: impact on the risk of HIV transmission by transfusion in France

Cited by

2022A mixed methods investigation of the relationship between blood donor policy, interest in donation, and willingness to donate among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Ontario, Canada 2021Sexual risk behavior questions: Understanding and mitigating donor discomfort 2022Behaviour based screening questions and potential donation loss using the “for the assessment of individualised risk” screening criteria: A Canadian perspective 2022HIV incidence and related risks among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver: Informing blood donor selection criteria in Canada 2024Implementation of sexual risk behavior donor screening in Canada 2022Staff perspectives on barriers and enablers to implementing alternative source plasma eligibility criteria for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.