Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychiatric morbidity among men with abuse of anabolic steroids. Methods:The design is a retrospectively matched cohort study. Five hundred and fourty-five males, who tested positive for anabolic steroids in Danish fitness centers during the period January 3, 2006 to March 1, 2018, were matched with 5450 randomly chosen male controls. Data was cross-referenced with seven national registers pertaining to information about education, employment status, and psychiatric comorbidity. Main outcomes and measures were prescription of psychopharmacological treatment. Results:The incidence of treatment with anxiolytics (HR: 2.34, 95% CI: 1.62−3.38) and antipsychotics (HR: 2.69, 95% CI: 1.99−3.63) displayed a remarkable increase in the years following doping sanction, compared to the control group. The prevalence of antidepressant use was already markedly elevated several years before doping sanction, but also displayed a higher incidence in the years following sanction (HR:1.65, 95% CI: 1.28−2.13). The associations remained highly significant after controlling for socioeconomic factors. Conclusion:Anabolic steroids use is strongly associated with psychiatric morbidity.

In this paper, we critically review the information distributed to patients and doctors regarding adverse drug reactions. One major concern is that frequencies reported in the summary of product characteristics are not adjusted for the nocebo effect, leading to an exaggerated concern of adverse drug reactions. Previous research has found that the understanding of health hazards related to pharmacotherapy can be significantly improved by providing information on the frequencies of adverse drug reactions in both the active-and placebo-treated group.