Self-Reported Blood Transfusion Practices and Attitudes of Kenyan Medical Doctors

Background: Blood transfusion (BT) is important in modern health care. However, the clinicians who prescribe this life-saving, scarce, and costly resource have often been found to lack awareness of the best practices required for optimal and safe clinical use of blood components. This study aimed at determining the self-reported practices and attitudes of Kenyan-trained medical doctors in BT. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was carried out among eligible medical doctors, who were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. A questionnaire was used to collect data that was analyzed by way of percentages, mean and median, Kruskal-Wallis H, Mann-Whitney U, and Spearman correlation. Results: A total of 150 participants were studied, with a mean age of 29.9 ± 3.6 and a male to female ratio of 3:2. About 73.3% of the participants had a positive attitude towards the practice of BT with attitude being associated with having participated in training after undergraduate medical education (p = 0.036). Overall, only 36.7% of the self-reported procedures conformed to the recommended best practices, and practice competency was associated with the site of practice (p = 0.007) and the cadre of the clinicians (p = 0.035)