Knowledge deficits regarding Chagas disease may place Mexico's blood supply at risk
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UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of PediatricsDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2010-10-07Keywords
*Blood BanksBlood Donors
Blood Transfusion
Chagas Disease
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Humans
Mass Screening
Mexico
Nurses
Professional Competence
Questionnaires
Risk Factors
Trypanosoma cruzi
Cardiology
Pediatrics
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Prevention of transfusion-related Chagas disease in Mexico City depends on targeted questionnaire-based screening of donors by nurses at blood banks. To assess potential problems with this strategy, surveys were distributed to the nurses who screen donors in a random sampling of nine blood banks in Mexico City, to measure appropriate knowledge about Chagas disease. We found that 80% (95% CI 68-92%) of nurses answered at least one of the three donor risk factor questions incorrectly, which may fail to trigger confirmatory laboratory testing of potentially infected units. If this knowledge deficit is widespread, up to 680,000 units (95% CI 578,000-782,000 units) of donated blood could be potentially contaminated with Chagas disease in Mexico. In place of targeted screening, routine laboratory testing of all donated blood would be a cost-effective method to safeguard blood recipients from iatrogenic Chagas disease.Source
Transfus Apher Sci. 2010 Oct;43(2):193-6. Epub 2010 Aug 4. Link to article on publisher's siteDOI
10.1016/j.transci.2010.07.008Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/43142PubMed ID
20688572Related Resources
Link to Article in PubMedae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.transci.2010.07.008