Athlete support personnel and anti-doping: Knowledge, attitudes, and ethical stance.

Athlete support personnel (ASP) failing to meet responsibilities under the World Anti-Doping Code risk sanction. It is unclear whether the poor knowledge of responsibilities seen in sports physicians and coaches applies to other ASP (e.g., administrators, chiropractors, family, nutritionists, physiotherapists, psychologists, and trainers). A purposive sample of Australian ASP (n = 292) responded to a survey on knowledge of anti-doping rules (35 true/false questions), ethical beliefs and practice, and attitudes toward performance enhancement. Some ASP declined to participate, claiming doping was irrelevant to their practice. Physicians were most knowledgeable (30.8/35), with family and trainers the least (26.0/35). ASP reported that improvements were needed to support anti-doping education (e.g., basis for anti-doping) and practice (e.g., rules). ASP also had a slightly negative attitude toward performance enhancement. Linear regression showed that being a sports physician, providing support at the elite level, and 15 years of experience influenced knowledge. The results confirm gaps in knowledge, suggesting that stronger engagement with ASP anti-doping education and practice is needed. Applying the principles of andragogy could help foster active engagement through emphasis on active inquiry, rather than passive reception of content. Future work on the context within which ASP experience anti-doping is needed, exploring acquisition and translation of knowledge into practice.

Self-admitted behavior and perceived use of performance-enhancing vs psychoactive drugs among competitive athletes.

The relationships between projected use, self-reported behavior and attitudes to performance-enhancing (PED) and recreational (RD) drugs were investigated among 82 competitive Hungarian athletes, with 14.6% admitting using PED and 31.7% using RD. Both the observed doping estimations (even those made by non-users) and self-admitted use were considerably higher than the average rate of positive doping tests (2% of all tests). The notable overestimation by PED users (34.6% vs 16.9%) was in keeping with the false consensus effect. A prediction model with attitude and projection to the likelihood of PED use suggested at least a 70% chance of self-involvement of athletes, with responses at or above the median scores (Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale ≥ 60 and estimation ≥ 50%) on the two independent measures. Users overestimated the prevalence of doping in their sport (P=0.007) but not RD use, with the converse holding for RD users' views of doping (P=0.029). PED users also showed a significantly more lenient attitude toward doping (P<0.001). This domain-specific characteristic adds new information to the ongoing research effort in understanding drug-doping co-morbidity. The reasons for elevated in-group projection are discussed, along with the potential application of this phenomenon in doping epidemiology studies.

Would you dope? A general population test of the Goldman dilemma.

OBJECTIVE: To test Goldman's dilemma on a general population sample by asking whether they would take the Faustian bargain of a drug that guaranteed sporting success but would result in their death in 5 years' time. Between 1982 and 1995 a bi-annual survey using this dilemma suggested half of all elite athletes would take the drug. DESIGN: A random telephone survey of 250 members of the Australian general public, with counterbalanced presentation of success and death. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Respondents gave age, gender, sports engagement and response to the dilemma (yes/no). RESULTS: Only two of a sample of 250 reported they would take the bargain offered by the dilemma. CONCLUSIONS: Athletes differ markedly from the general population in response to the dilemma. This raises significant practical and ethical dilemmas for athlete support personnel. The psychometry of the dilemma needs to be established more comprehensively for general and athlete populations.

Modelling change in adolescent smoking behaviour: stability of predictors across analytic models.

OBJECTIVES: The current paper examined the variability of predictors of changes in adolescent smoking across linear and nonlinear analytic models. DESIGN: Three analytic models typically used to model adolescent smoking behaviour were tested: one linear model of change (standard linear), one static linear model (pre-post linear) and one nonlinear model of change (cusp catastrophe). Variability in model composition was assessed by examining the pattern of variables achieving statistical significance and proportion of variance explained. METHODS: Model testing was conducted on data from Australian adolescents successfully tracked through a 12-month longitudinal study of smoking (N = 779). The survey measured demographics, self-reported smoking, smoking among friends and family, self-esteem, neuroticism, coping, stress and risk taking. RESULTS: The results indicated that while predictors of change were invariant across analytic models explanatory power varied markedly. Models of change in smoking that included simple, interacted or polynomial forms of initial conditions (past behaviour) explained more than four times the variance of models without. CONCLUSIONS: These results justified confidence in the predictors of change in adolescent smoking across analytic models. A secondary implication was that more research into past behaviour's role in the context of dynamical models of adolescent smoking and other health behaviour is needed.

Towards an empirical model of performance enhancing supplement use: a pilot study among high performance UK athletes.

This paper addressed a gap in the literature of empirically derived models of performance enhancing supplement use by developing a demographic and psychosocially based model of athlete supplement use. Selected questions were used from a larger survey conducted by UK Sport into British athletes' experiences, knowledge, attitudes and opinions in relation to anti-doping activities. Forward conditional step wise logistic regression was employed on data from n=757 athletes to develop a model that discriminated supplement non-users from users. The model identified that British athletes most likely to use supplements were younger (under 23) males who were more likely to see doping as a problem in their sport and were more knowledgeable about testing procedures than their non-user counterparts. Post hoc analysis reinforced that non-users saw doping as less of a problem in their sport and were less knowledgeable about drug testing procedures relative to those using supplements. The pattern of results indicated gender-specific interventions on supplement use for young male athletes may yield significant benefits. The relationship between supplement use and perception of a doping problem suggested more work is needed to understand supplement use culture within sports. The relationship between knowledge of testing procedures and supplement use suggested further research is needed to see whether this is a positive or negative effect of detection-based doping deterrence activity.

Profiles of adolescent stress: the development of the adolescent stress questionnaire (ASQ).

The importance of stress in the understanding of adolescent health and well-being is widely documented. The measurement of adolescent stress has however been subjected to sufficient methodological and conceptual criticism in recent times to warrant a concerted re-evaluation of the exercise. This study sought information on the nature of adolescent stressors, building on a previous instrument developed by the first author to ask adolescents themselves to inform the development of a pool of new items reflecting stressor experience and to advise on the wording of these items to comprehensively assess that experience. This pool of items was then administered as a self-reported questionnaire to a large sample of school-age adolescents (N>1000) together with a scale to assess the intensity of distress arising from stressor occurrence. Principal components analysis of the questionnaire yielded 10 internally reliable dimensions of adolescent stress, the nature of which were consistent with the available literature on adolescent stressor experience. Scales constructed from this PCA related positively to measures of anxiety and depression, and negatively to a measure of self-esteem, suggesting that they were valid measures of adolescent stress. Test-retest reliability was good for all scales. The resultant Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ) is therefore suggested to have potential for the measurement of adolescent stress in both research and clinical contexts.

Adolescent stress and future smoking behaviour: a prospective investigation.

OBJECTIVE: Adolescent stress has been retrospectively associated with various measures of smoking behaviour in school-aged samples. The present study sought to extend this to a prospective investigation in order to examine the possibly formative influences of stress on the onset of smoking in adolescents. METHOD: A 12-month follow-up study related sources and degree of adolescent stress measured at study commencement with the onset of smoking behaviour 12 months later in a large cohort of adolescents attending Australian secondary schools. RESULTS: Adolescent stress was only weakly related to smoking onset in adolescent males and even this could possibly be explained by other factors. In adolescent girls, however, prospective associations were stronger and more broadly represented across the various domains of adolescent stress, suggesting that stress may exert a formative influence on smoking onset for girls. CONCLUSION: Management strategies for adolescent stress may be an affective target for smoking prevention programs among adolescent girls.

A comparison of predictors of the adolescent intention to smoke with adolescent current smoking using discriminant function analysis.

OBJECTIVES: This paper explores one possible operationalization of smoking intention to assist development of adolescent smoking intervention programmes. Such programmes usually focus on predictors of current smoking, ignoring predictors of intentions to smoke, or how intentions relate to actual future smoking. DESIGN AND METHODS: Respondents took part in two stages of a repeated measures national survey on Australian adolescent smoking behaviour (12-month interval between administrations). A total of N=1419 adolescents provided matched data, measuring personal smoking habits, intentions of smoking behaviour, stress (seven subscales), self-esteem and response to the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). RESULTS: A comparison of discriminant function predictors showed similarity between the current smoking and intention to smoke, with only one predictor differing between the functions. Non-smokers were more behaviourally consistent with their stated non-smoking intention over 12 months (i.e. remain non-smokers) than smokers (i.e. intention seemed unrelated to actual behaviour). CONCLUSIONS: While the predictors give no general indication of whether the processes behind the intention to smoke differ from current smoking, the intention to smoke may be a better focus for intervention with smokers given the apparent inconsistency with stated intention. Intervention for non-smokers may be usefully focused on maintaining non-smoking rather than preventing smoking.