ADRP Webinar Understanding, Managing, and Preventing Vasovagal Blood Donor Reactions in Teenagers

This presentation was so well received at the ADRP Conference in Indianapolis that it is being scheduled again to reach an even broader audience! 

Blood donation is a safe and common activity that meets a critically important community need.  When adverse events occur, most are mild and consist primarily of hematomas vasovagal reactions (VVRs).  Twi-to-five-percent of whole blood donations result in some manifestations of a VVR, most of which are mild/"pre-faint" in nature.  VVRs can occur from the time the donor arrives at the donation site until well after the donation is complete.  Such reactions have been associated with fear, first-time donor status, young age, low estimated blood volume and body weight, and female gender.  VVRs are particularly frequent in teenage donors. 

This presentation will review VVR-related research findings and provide recommendations to recruitment, collections, medical and other colleagues for preventing and managing VVRs in teenage donors.

Speaker:  Dr. Mary Townsend, Senior Medical Director, Vitalant

Dr. Townsend has a passion for donors.  She has participated in the study and mitigation of donor adverse events for many years with a focus on young donors.  She was a member of the AABB Young Donor Adverse Reaction Group, the AABB Donor Biovigilance Working Group, the ISBT Donor Biovigilance Working Party, and has recently chaired the AABB subgroup of the Donor Biovigilance Working Group to develop a tool for grading severity of donor reactions.  She has presented on the topic of Donor Adverse Events at national and international venues.