Research Article Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Adult Population towards Blood Donation in Gondar Town, Northwest Ethiopia: A Community Based Cross-Sectional Study Mulugeta Melku, 1 Betelihem Terefe, 1 Fikir Asrie, 1 Bamlaku Enawgaw, 1 Tadele Melak, 2 Yakob Gebregziabher Tsegay, 3 Mohamedamin Areba, 4 and Elias Shiferaw 1 1 Department of Hematology and Immunohematology, School of Biomedical and Laboratory Sciences, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, P.O. Box 196, Gondar, Ethiopia 2 Department of Clinical Chemistry, School of Biomedical and Laboratory Sciences, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, P.O. Box 196, Gondar, Ethiopia 3 Quality and Safety Office, National Blood Bank Services, P.O. Box 1234, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 4 Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, School of Biomedical and Laboratory Sciences, College of Medicine and Health sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia Correspondence should be addressed to Elias Shiferaw; eliasshiferaw68@yahoo.com Received 20 April 2016; Accepted 23 June 2016 Academic Editor: P¨ ar Johansson Copyright © 2016 Mulugeta Melku et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Tough World Health Organization recommends 100% voluntary blood donation, the percentage of blood collected from voluntary blood donors and the average annual blood collection rate are extremely low in Ethiopia. Te role of adults is crucial to meet the demand of safe blood. Tus, this study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude, and practice of adult population towards blood donation in Gondar town, Northwest Ethiopia. Method. A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 768 adults. Multistage sampling technique together with simple random and systematic random sampling technique was employed. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis and bivariate correlation analysis were done. Result. About 436 (56.8%), 630 (82%), and 141 (18.4%) study participants had adequate knowledge, good attitude, and experience of blood donation, respectively. Secondary and higher educational statuses were signifcantly associated with adequate knowledge towards blood donation. Participants who were protestant by religion were more likely to have good attitude towards blood donation. Age, self- perceived health status, and religion were signifcantly associated with blood donation practice. Conclusion. Knowledge and attitude towards blood donation are high. However, the level of practice is low. District and national blood banks and transfusion agency should design strategies that promote and motivate the communities to donate blood. 1. Introduction Blood is an invaluable, life-sustaining fuid. Without a suf- cient amount of blood, the cells of the human body could not receive adequate oxygen and nutrients they need to survive. Large volume of blood could be lost as a result of numerously varying serious conditions such as road trafc accidents, obstetric and gynecological hemorrhages, surgery, trauma, chemotherapy, and long-term therapies as well as anemia of medical or hematologic conditions or cancer. Because of these blood transfusion is considered as an integral and essential element of a health care system. Besides, blood transfusion is one part of complex medical and surgical interventions which improves the life expectancy and life quality in patients with a variety of acute and chronic conditions. Terefore, blood transfusion is now considered as an indispensable component of medical management of many diseases [1]. Blood donation is philanthropic deed in which the blood of a healthy person had been drawn voluntarily for the Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Blood Transfusion Volume 2016, Article ID 7949862, 10 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/7949862