Table 5.

Reasons for both donating and not donating blood in college-going students

Reason for donating blood	Donors (%)
Moral responsibility	371 (74.2)
Altruism	61 (12.2)
Peer pressure	17 (3.4)
To lose weight	12 (2.4)
To get my blood group done for free	10 (2.0)
To decrease my cholesterol levels	7 (1.4)
To decrease my hemoglobin to acceptable level	6 (1.2)
To increase my attendance in college lectures	5 (1.0)
To please my boss/seniors/friends/peer group	4 (0.8)
To get my HIV/AIDS test done for free	4 (0.8)
To get mementoes/gifts etc to impress my family members/peer group	2 (0.4)
To decrease my iron stores and in turn decrease heart disease risk	1 (0.2)
Reason for not donating blood	Nondonors (%)
Fear of needle pain	137 (27.4)
I may not be fit to donate blood	134 (26.8)
Fear of becoming weak	95 (19.0)
No one ever asked me to donate blood	49 (9.8)
Fear of contracting disease	23 (4.6)
Blood banks sell our collected blood	21 (4.2)
No time for blood donation	10 (2.0)
Fear of discovering some unknown disease on testing	9 (1.8)
I may not be able to donate when someone close to me actually requires blood	8 (1.6)
Many people are donating blood; I do not need to donate blood	7 (1.4)
Do not know where to donate blood	5 (1.0)
I do not donate blood as I did not get blood when someone close to me required it	2 (0.4)

Notes: Total may not add to 100, because of more than one reason by a participant.