Abstract

 Background and Objectives

 Considering infectious and non-infectious complications of blood transfusion, we decided to survey physicians’ knowledge about and their attitudes toward autologous blood and to see how education can affect them.

 Materials and Methods

 A cross-sectional study was conducted on general physicians and specialists who ordered blood and blood products in Shiraz hospitals. A questionnaire aiming to elicit demographic characteristics, and evaluate the knowledge about collection methods of autologus blood and its benefit was used for data collection. Then, we provided education about autologus blood for participants. The rate of ordered autologus blood was compared before and after the intervention. We used chi-square, fisher and t-test for data analysis.

 Results

 The mean score of physicians’ knowledge about autologus blood was 14.41 ± 3.32 (2.86-20) that was lower than that of specialists with the mean of 15.95 ± 2. The most common reasons for the use and non-use of autologous blood were blood safety for the former and the lack of knowledge about preparation and prescription of autologus blood for the latter. The knowledge level of physicians was higher in pre-operative collection methods than in other fields of autologous blood collection.

 Conclusions

 Physicians’ knowledge about autologus blood was evaluated to be low and despite their desire for its use, the practical rate was still low. The results showed that even education provided to physicians did not increase the ordering rate of autologus blood.