Update on search challenge 4

Search challenge 4 (here and here) looked at the incidence of vasovagal syncope among blood donors.

This week's JAMA includes an article that adds an interesting perspective on this question, one I hadn't considered before -- a study by Eder et al. employed Red Cross data to examine adverse events in 16 and 17 year old blood donors, and found a higher incidence of complications and related injury -- might be an interesting way to parse through the results of the PubMed strategy we came up with in the strategies for search challenge 4, to share with the reader the possibility that the incidence of fainting might vary with age and perhaps other variables in the included data (e.g. gender, ethnicity, weight and BMI).

So then, using our searching expertise to provide data that answers the question "what is the overall incidence of fainting in the blood donor population?" as well starting to get at the question "how do we know who might be at greater risk of this adverse event?"

The JAMA reference: Anne F. Eder, MD, PhD; Christopher D. Hillyer, MD; Beth A. Dy, BS; Edward P. Notari IV, MPH; Richard J. Benjamin, MD, PhD. Adverse Reactions to Allogeneic Whole Blood Donation by 16- and 17-Year-Olds. JAMA. 2008;299(19):2279-2286.