Background: Unsafe blood products may cause transfusion-transmissible infections. This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge and perceptions of blood donors regarding blood safety. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in the Kelantan state of Malaysia. The questionnaire comprised 39 questions that covered areas such as donors’ social demographic information, knowledge of transfusion-transmitted diseases, blood screening and donor eligibility and perceptions towards blood safety. The knowledge score was categorised as good or poor. Results: Of the 450 distributed questionnaires, 389 were suitable for analysis. Only 18.5% of the donors had good knowledge, with 81.5% having poor knowledge. Less than 30% were aware that people with multiple sexual partners, bisexual people and male homosexual people are permanently deferred from blood donation. Only 29.4% agreed that donors are responsible if their blood causes infection. Furthermore, 39.3% assumed that they could check their HIV status through blood donation, and 10.3% and 5.4% of the respondents believed that donors are free from infection if they wear a condom during sex or only have oral sex when involved in prostitution, respectively. Conclusion: Poor knowledge and notable misperceptions concerning safe blood donation were found among blood donors. The Ministry of Health should incorporate safe blood education in future public awareness programmes.

Introduction: Unsafe blood products cause transfusion-transmissible infections. A good knowledge and perception about blood safety issues is crucial to ensure safe blood supply. The objective is to develop and validate a questionnaire about the knowledge and perception among blood donors on blood safety issues. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 130 blood donors who attended the National Blood Centre, Kuala Lumpur in April and May 2018. The questionnaire was developed in the Malay language after extensive literature search. The self-administrated questionnaire consisted 39 items which required around 20 minutes to complete. The validation involved content validity, construct validity using exploratory factor analysis and reliability using test-retest analysis in IBM SPSS statistics. The same group of respondents was retested after two weeks using the same questionnaire. Results: Content validity was established through multidisciplinary expert meeting and two content reviewers. The factors loadings of all questionnaires were more than 0.40. Knowledge questions were divided into three domains; perception questions were divided into four domains. The intraclass correlation (ICC) values of the test-retest were more than 0.80 for the three knowledge domains and more than 0.60 for the four perception domains. The third domain of the perception section which consisted two questions had the lowest ICC value of 0.686 (95% CI 0.583-0.767). One of the questions was restructured to improve clarity. Conclusions: The questionnaire on knowledge and perception on blood safety issues has good validity and reliability, with appropriate items which warranted its utilization among blood donors.

Introduction: Good knowledge and perception regarding iron supplementation are crucial to ensure adherence to iron therapy. This study aims to develop and validate a questionnaire on the knowledge and perception among pregnant women about oral iron consumption. Method: A self-administrated questionnaire was developed in Malay language through extensive literature search and a face and content validation process. The questionnaire validation involved two parts; Validation Study 1 included item response theory (IRT) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) for the knowledge and perception items, respectively. Validation Study 2 comprised a repeat IRT analysis for the knowledge items and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for the perception items. Results: For the knowledge section, the initial 22 items in Validation Study 1 were reduced to 19 items after the repeat IRT analysis. The remaining 19 items had difficulty and discrimination parameters close to or within the acceptable values. For the perception section, the original 16 items were reduced to 14 in the EFA as two items had a factor loading ≤0.3. The CFA model showed poor fit of items (chi-square p-value <0.05; CFIrobust=0.73; TLIrobust=0.68; RMSEArobust=0.20; and SRMR=0.12). The Cronbach’s alpha for both sections were >0.7, and the intra-class correlation coefficient value in the knowledge and perception sections were 0.74 and 0.87, respectively. Conclusion: The results illustrate good psychometric properties for the knowledge items. However, further confirmatory validation is needed for the perception items. This questionnaire can be a valid and reliable assessment tool for assessing the knowledge of pregnant women regarding oral iron consumption.

Introduction: Rac1 and STIM1 genes are emerging therapeutic targets for cancers. However, their roles in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) are not well understood. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of dose and time on Rac1 and STIM1 knockdown in the AML cell line model (THP-1 cells). Methods: THP-1 cells were transfected with siRac1 at doses of 50, 100, and 200 nM or dsiSTIM1 at doses of 2, 5, and 10 nM. Expression level of Rac1 and STIM1 then were assessed at time points between 12 and 72 h post-transfection using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Results: Compared to the control, 87% Rac1 knockdown was attained with 50 nM siRac1 at 24 h post-transfection, and 70% STIM1 knockdown was achieved with 10 nM dsiSTIM1 at 48 h post-transfection. Conclusion: These results show that effective knockdown of Rac1 and STIM1 is possible, and therapy that includes Rac1 and STIM1 inhibitors eventually could provide a new and highly effective strategy for AML treatment.