Understanding urgent blood-donor mobilisability: a cross-sectional online survey of digitally reachable adults in Ghana

Introduction Safe and timely blood availability remains a major global health challenge, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Digital tools may accelerate donor contact, but digital reachability alone does not ensure that people will notice, trust and act on urgent requests to support blood donation efforts. We examined factors associated with anticipated engagement in digitally coordinated urgent blood-donor mobilisation among digitally reachable adults in Ghana. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional online survey from September 2025 to January 2026 across Ghana's 16 regions. Participants were recruited via Facebook advertising and snowball sampling. Factors associated with urgent blood-donor mobilisability were assessed under four criteria: high future-donation willingness; high willingness to install a trusted donation app; high willingness to respond to a trusted urgent-request; and high practical flexibility to leave current activities. Descriptive analyses and multivariable logistic regression examined prevalence and associated factors. Results Among 1,067 participants, 577 (54.1%) met all four criteria. Future-donation willingness (91.8%), trusted-app installation willingness (83.2%) and trusted-request response willingness (82.7%) were common, whereas practical flexibility was lower (66.6%). In the adjusted model, high formal health-system trust (adjusted OR (AOR) 3.95, 95% CI 2.08–7.50), high digital-response readiness (AOR 2.26, 1.66–3.08), previous donation (AOR 1.47, 1.08–2.01), high donation knowledge (AOR 1.42, 1.03–1.97) and willingness to donate to strangers were positively associated with high mobilisability. Women (AOR 0.60, 0.43–0.83), participants reporting a work-schedule barrier (AOR 0.43, 0.29–0.66) and those travelling over 30 min to the nearest healthcare facility at night (AOR 0.66, 0.45–0.96) had lower adjusted odds. Conclusions Digital reachability and stated donation willingness may overestimate the population pool available for emergency donation. Digital blood-donor solutions should consider verifiable health-system requests, account for response readiness and current availability, and connect willing individuals with accessible collection options and transport support where needed.