Public Relations Strategies and Blood Donation in Thailand: A Case Study of Blood Donors and Non-Donors

The study explores the relationship between public relations strategies regarding blood donation in Thailand and audience responses to blood donation on the part of blood donors and non-donors as a comparative case study in terms of a) demographics, media exposure to blood and blood donation messages, knowledge of blood and blood donation, attitudes towards blood donation, and practices of blood donation and nondonation and b) blood and blood donation media messages. A variety of literature regarding public relations, communication, persuasion, and blood donation was reviewed and explained under a two-way, cyclical process of public relations, starting with analysing the situation, the programming and planning of communication objectives and goals and the defined target audiences, and communicating and implementing public relations strategies. The process ended with feedback and evaluation. To accomplish the objectives of the study, a mixed strategy of semi-structured in-depth interviews and documentary research was used for examining the communication source. Four hundred questionnaires and eight focus groups, divided equally to compare blood donors and non-donors, were employed to investigate responses to blood donation. The study revealed the importance of distributing blood and blood donation messages targeted to raise knowledge, inform attitudes and motivate behaviour change, through the controlled media supplemented by uncontrolled means and personal channels. Similarly, levels of education and knowledge, together with attitudes are all indicative factors in donating blood, while non-donors were lacking those variables. Important reasons for blood donation or non-donation were also, respectively, altruism and fear. Otherwise blood donors and non-donors mainly reflected similar responses to the media messages; however, non-donors made more requests for fear reduction and statistics and attached greater importance to message repetition. The available resources of the communication source, the messages themselves, and the communication channels all play an important role in promoting blood donation to the audiences.