The intention to donate the blood it is less and less common among young people Italians. Fears, false myths and scarce information have led, in recent years, to a distancing of the new generations from this important gesture of solidarity.
This is what emerges from the data that AVIS presented yesterday to the press room of the Chamber of Deputies, during a conference promoted by the Hon. Maria Elena Boschi and in which i Senators Pier Ferdinando Casini and Gianni Mancuso, coordinator of the parliamentary intergroup of blood donors .
Of greatest concern is the decline in the number of younger donors, as the Director General of the National Blood Center, Vincenzo De Angelis .
«Blood and plasma collection is returning to pre-Covid levels, but the lack of generational turnover of the donor population is an increasingly worrying factor. Donors between the ages of 18 and 45 dropped by 2% in one year and this is just one of the critical issues that the blood system will have to face in the coming months and years, working together at all levels, involving the institutions and increasingly enhancing the precious work of voluntary associations and transfusion service professionals Italians”.
Also among teenagers the data is not very encouraging: a survey commissioned by AVIS to the Adolescence Laboratory and carried out on a sample of 5,600 young people reveals that only 38% would be willing to donate when they come of age . A figure down by 10 percentage points compared to the previous survey, carried out just two years ago.
There are some diehards who dominate it fears such as that from the needle, the sight of blood or the fear of passing out during or after the blood sample. Furthermore, the end of the pandemic probably favored the spread of a more introspective attitude, more projected on themselves and on the needs of the community.
The data collected by AVIS during numerous meetings with girls and boys under 25 demonstrate that the information in their possession is very fragmentary and this would often push them to self-exclude themselves, in the mistaken belief that they are not suitable for the donation.
Respondents stated that they resort more and more often to social network come Instagram or TikTok to inquire and this would confirm what has already emerged in similar research conducted by Google in the United States: social networks have now become to all intents and purposes the new search engines of Generation Z, by which those born after 1997 are defined.
«Starting from these assumptions, we understood the need to review our communication strategies – comments the President of National AVIS, Gianpietro Briola – and our approach to the most popular social platforms among young people, whose mere entertainment function is too often recognized. This is why we have encouraged our presence on these channels and have recently launched one new campaign, entitled “Get involved, donate blood”which aims to stimulate young people to overcome their own limits and adopt a proactive attitude towards others.
On an organizational level, to intercept the needs of donors, the collection system must evolve towards logics of flexibility and proximity”, continues the Briola President. «The inclusion of blood and plasma collection centers inside the Community Houses and the extension of the opening hours of the centres could, in our opinion, be the first solutions capable of scoring a change of pace towards the involvement of young people ».
“I’m sure that boys and girls, if stimulated, are ready to donate,” she commented the Hon. Maria Elena Boschi. «Often the new generations are in the forefront when it comes to thinking generously of others, starting with volunteering. Our commitment is to try to involve them more and more with targeted campaigns. There response from boys and girls will not fail ».