Background: Blood donors are deferred from donating blood for several reasons, either permanently or temporarily. Anemia is a major cause for temporary deferral among donors. The aim of our study was to find the incidence of deferred donors due to anemia and to analyse the most common blood group deferred due to it. Materials & Methods: A retrospective study was done from January 2012-June 2012, in order to study the rate of deferral due to anemia in Father Muller Medical College Hospital Blood Bank. Data was collected by reviewing the deferred donor records over the six months period. It was analyzed by frequency and percentage. Result: Out of 3354 donors over six months period, 559 were deferred (203 females, 356 males). Of these 144 were deferred due to anemia (137 females, 7 males). The most common cause of deferral in women was due to anemia, accounting for about 67.48% of deferral in females which is in accordance with the literature available. It was seen that donors with A+ ve blood group were mostly deferred. Conclusion: Donor deferral can be reduced by creating awareness, health education and also by administration of Iron –Folic acid supplementation.

Keywords: Anemia; Donor deferral; Blood donor.