New donors, loyal donors, and regular donors: Which motivations sustain blood donation?

Background: The present contribution aims to investigate the motivations underlying blood donation and to probe how these differ on the basis of number of donations and donors' gender. Materials and methods: A total of 237 Italian donors (64.6% male) were administered a self-report questionnaire containing socio-demographic variables and Omoto and Snyder's Motivations for Volunteerism Scale adapted to blood donation. Results and discussion: The results reveal: (a) significant differences between new donors (1-4 donations) and loyal donors (5-15 donations) as well as between new donors and regular donors (more than 16 donations) emerge with respect to social motivations and ego-protection, which increase proportionately to number of donations; (b) gender differences characterize all the motivations except those related to values; (c) value motivations do not vary either with respect to number of donations or to gender. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.