Blood and needles anxiety among blood donors and non blood donors

Blood and needles phobia in one of most studied specific phobia subtypes, due to its wide impact on the health of patients. However, a certain degree of blood and needles anxiety it’s extremely common and a recent systematic review (McLenon et al., 2018) reports that nearly 20-30% of young adult exhibit fear of needles. Interestingly blood and needles anxiety is also the barrier reported more often to become blood donors (Zito et al., 2012) and it’s considered, in fact, an informal exclusion criterion. Consequently, it’s important to assess this construct and develop effective interventions to increase the motivation of non-donors. Contrary to previous believes, some recent studies have shown that blood and needles anxiety is extremely common also among experienced blood donors (France et al., 2018). As part of a wider validation study, we assessed the level of blood and needles anxiety, in a sample of 968 university students, including 150 actual blood donors. The assessment included the Injection Phobia Scale, the Medical Fear Survey-short form and the Blood Donors Reaction Inventory. As expected blood donors and non-blood donors report a significant difference between the scores of the questionnaires, with higher level among non-blood donors; however, considering only the subsample of blood donors there’s a wide variability in the level of blood and needles anxiety and pre-syncopal reaction to the last blood donation. Blood and needles anxiety is part of the everyday experience of both blood donors and non-blood donors and a structured regular assessment should be included as part of the selection process in order to identify the at risk subjects and propose a tailored management. A longitudinal study could help to verify the predictive value of the blood and needles anxiety.