Young People Attitudes Toward Doping Depending on the Sport they Do

Doping is a phenomenon that is associated with high-level sport, but rarely has it been given the attention it needs in the sphere of recreational sport. Therefore, the goal of this study is to analyse and establish relationships between the attitudes towards the use of doping of pre-university students depending on the kind of sport they do and whether they have ever been urged to use performance-enhancing drugs. A total of 829 students between the ages of 15 and 18 (M=16.22 years old, SD=.77) participated and the kind of sport, being urged to take performance-enhancing drugs and attitudes towards doping variables were recorded and evaluated. The data were collected in an ad-hoc questionnaire using Petróczi’s (2002) Performance Enhancement Attitudes Scale (PEAS). The results showed that the majority of the participants had attitudes towards doping that are not very permissive; young people who went cycling or who regularly lifted weights have attitudes that are more prone to doping; participants who had been urged to use performance-enhancing drugs had more permissive attitudes towards doping; and individuals who went cycling or did weightlifting were those who had been urged to use performance-enhancing drugs most often.