Enhancing blood safety and donor eligibility are vital in blood banking. We analyze our blood center's approach and Turkey's general strategy in this domain, focusing on identifying and mitigating the reasons for donor deferral.

We retrospectively evaluated data from 169,410 donors visiting Çukurova University Medical Faculty Blood Center from 2015 to 2021, including demographic, clinical, and laboratory information. We also compared this data with historical records from 2009 and 2011 obtained from Turkish conference papers.

Our analysis covered donors aged 18-65 years (mean 38 years) consisting of 91.1% males and 8.9% females. Blood type distribution was A Rh(+) 36.7%, O Rh(+) 29.5%, B Rh(+) 14.8%, and AB Rh(+) 7.6%. Only 3.6% of donors volunteered, while the rest had different donation reasons. A 72.3% successful donation rate was observed, but there was a 27.7% deferral rate, surpassing 2011′s 25.3% and 2009′s 18.2%. Deferrals were mostly due to anemia, recent medication use, elevated blood pressure, and vaccination history.

Donor deferral aims to safeguard both donors and recipients against potential risks, underlining the importance of continual evaluation and management strategies to minimize deferral rates.