A Study on Blood Group Distribution and its Correlation with Bleeding Time and Clotting Time among First Year Undergraduate Medical Students

Background: There is a clear association between ABO blood group status and levels of Von Willebrand factor (vWF). Blood group O is related with lower expression of vWF which leads to relative bleeding tendency. Thus, relationships between Bleeding time (BT), Clotting time (CT) and blood groups are important in certain conditions like epistaxis, surgery, thrombosis etc. Aims and Objectives: i)To determine the blood group, of the students and to determine their relationship with BT and CT. Materials and Methods: Institution based cross-sectional observational study done in Department of Physiology, Tripura Medical College & Dr. BRAM Teaching Hospital. BT and CT were done by Duke’s Method and Capillary glass tube method respectively. Blood groups were determined on basis of presence or absence of agglutination. Qualitative data was expressed in percentage and quantitative data in frequency, mean and standard deviations. Chi-square test was applied. P value of 6 minutes found to be maximum in blood group O (53. 8%).Gender wise distribution showed CT > 6minutes in 39% females as compared to 34 %males (p value: 0.5826). Conclusion: In our study, CT was > 6 minutes and BT was > 4 minutes’ maximum in number in blood group O. Gender-wise BT and CT were higher in females than males. Our study showed that O blood group females are prone to certain diseases like epistaxis bleeding etc.