Doping awareness among amateur adolescent athletes

Abstract

Objective: to determine the level of awareness of the doping issues among adolescents aged 10–19 years who are engaged in amateur sports as a part of high performance sport.Materials and methods: a special survey of 106 respondents was conducted to assess attitudes towards doping and the level of awareness in anti-doping issues. The average age of the respondents was 17.33 ± 1.54 years.Results: despite the fact that 96 % of the respondents stated that they know what doping is, generally, there is a low level of awareness among young athletes in anti-doping issues. One fourth of the respondents can justify the use of doping, only 13.2 % of adolescents believe that winning a competition with the use of doping can be considered as a well-deserved victory. More than 56 % of the respondents do not warn medical staff that they are athletes, only 32.1 % of adolescents are interested in whether medications prescribed or taken by themselves are included in the prohibited list. The study found that the main sources of information on anti-doping rules for adolescent athletes are television (64.1 %) and specialized websites (47.2 %).Conclusion: the study results revealed the need to popularize information on anti-doping issues. Educational programs should be carried out taking into account the psychological and emotional characteristics of adolescents and include actively promoting doping awareness both using conventional media and new media resources, such as the Internet and social networks.