Kim and Kim Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy (2017) 12:7 DOI 10.1186/s13011-017-0092-7 RESEARCH Open Access Korean national athletes’ knowledge, practices, and attitudes of doping: a cross-sectional study Taegyu Kim1 and Young Hoon Kim2,3* Abstract Background: Despite the efforts of the World Anti-Doping Agency and national anti-doping agencies at the international level, a relatively low and steady rate of positive doping tests still persists all over the world. Evidence on adolescents using doping substances exists, and the proportion of adolescents engaging in doping practices is small but significant. In relation to the international research trends on anti-doping, this study aims to evaluate doping knowledge, practices, and attitudes among Korean adult and adolescent elite athletes to provide effective information on anti-doping policies and education programs. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study of 454 Korean elite athletes (249 adults in 23 events and 205 adolescents in 22 events). Data were collected by an interviewer-administered questionnaire containing items regarding doping practices and knowledge, brief definitions of performance-enhancing substances/methods and recreational substances, and the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale (PEAS). Results: Adolescent (47.3%) and adult (57.0%) athletes received information on banned substances of their respective sports from the Korea Anti-Doping Agency, and 39.0 and 53.4% of adolescents and adults, respectively, had knowledge of banned substances and had permissive attitudes toward doping compared to those who were unaware. Adolescent and adult athletes have inadvertently (1.5 and 3.6%, respectively) or knowingly (1.0 and 2.8%, respectively) taken banned performance-enhancing substances, and 2.4 and 3.2%, respectively, knew someone who had taken banned substances. And the adolescent athletes in motor skill category (PEAS: 40.24 ± 10.91) were more permissive toward doping than those in team category (PEAS: 35.08 ± 10.21). Conclusion: An in-depth anti-doping education for Korean athletes should be more widely implemented, and effective anti-doping policy should meet the athletes’ demographic characteristics, personalities, and values. Keywords: Adult, Adolescent, Performance enhancement attitude scale, Anti-doping Background naturally through human history [5]. At present, the The use of performance-enhancing substances in sports World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) defined doping as is not a new phenomenon [1]. To improve their the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs and performance, over 5,000 years ago, ephedra was used in methods to improve performance [6, 7]. China, and athletes used stimulants such as dried figs, In 1928, performance-enhancing drugs were first banned mushrooms, and strychnine during the Ancient Greek by the International Amateur Athletics Federation (now Olympic Games [2–4]. It is conservative to say that the the International Association of Athletics Federations) [8]. use of performance-enhance in substances occurred When two deaths caused by amphetamine occurred in 1960 and 1967, the International Olympic Committee * Correspondence: [email protected] (IOC) formed the Medical Commission and tested for 2Department of Medicine, Graduate School of Jeju National University, 102 banned substances in 1967 and 1968, respectively [8]. Jejudaehak-ro, Jeju-si, Jeju-do 63243, Republic of Korea 3Mac Rehabilitation Clinic, 386, Nohyeong-ro, Jeju-si, Jeju-do 63083, Republic For effective anti-doping activities, the IOC found the of Korea need for cooperation between sports authorities and Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Kim and Kim Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy (2017) 12:7 Page 2 of 8 the government, and established the WADA in 1999 [8]. found seven anti-doping rule violations, with the excep- The WADA publishes a list of prohibited substances and tion of 28 cases in bodybuilding, which has a different methods annually and tests the blood and/or urine of ath- standard of competition from other sports events, were letes who registered in the National Olympic Committee, reported in 2015 [21]. Despite 140 anti-doping education randomly or systemically, for doping evidence [9]. More- programs with 12,272 participants, including the athletes over, the WADA and national anti-doping agencies in 2014, a small but steady number of violations exists educate all athletes to foster abstinence from banned [22]. Thus, in relation to the international research performance-enhancing substances [8, 9]. trends on anti-doping, this study aims to evaluate the dop- With all these efforts at the international level, the rate ing knowledge, practices, and attitudes among Korean of positive doping tests is around 2% [6]. A previous adult and adolescent elite athletes and compare doping at- study mentioned that this relatively low and steady rate titudes based on doping knowledge and practices, gender, is not a major problem in sport if it appears that the and sports event categories to provide effective informa- prevalence rate of alternative sources is considerably tion on anti-doping policies and education programs. higher [6]. However, it reported that more than 30% of competitive elite athletes have used at least one Methods substances for enhancing their performance [10] and the Participants percentage of unconfirmed doping cases is thought to be A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used significantly higher [11]. Moreover, evidence on adoles- to identify the doping knowledge, practices, and atti- cents using doping substances exists, and the proportion tudes of adult and adolescent elite athletes in Korea. A of adolescents engaging in doping practices is small but total of 468 (257 adults in 23 events and 211 adolescents significant [1]. Stilger & Yesalis [12] found that American in 22 events) of athletes enrolled in the Korean National high school football players use anabolic androgenic ste- Team in the 2013 and 2014 seasons were selected for roids starting at an average age of 14 years, and Calfee & this study based on their participation in international Fadale [3] mentioned that steroid use prevalence in high multi-sports events. The participants were divided into school ranged from 4 to 11% in boys and up to 3.3% in adult (>18 years old) and adolescent (≤18 years old) girls. The increase of the use of substances to enhance athletes. Adult athletes gave their informed consent to sports-performance among adolescents and even pre- participate in this study, while parental consent was adolescents is a worrying trend because of the relatively obtained for adolescent athletes. The participants com- unknown associated risks [13, 14]. Because of not only the pleted a self-report questionnaire regarding their demo- relative difficulty in determining all banned substances graphic information, events, and years of their career, utilized by elite athletes, but also the more sophisticated and their events were categorized as follows [23]: speed and doping methods of athletes who used them to en- power, endurance, motor skills, and team. For some events hance sports performance and their intent to evade whose categories was ambiguous, a high-performance testers [1, 15], the identification of driving forces be- coach of each discipline was consulted and asked to select hind the doping behaviors of athletes was required to the categories [24]. The speed and power category con- develop effective anti-doping programs [16]. Actually, tained athletics, weightlifting, taekwondo, judo and so on, Smith and Stewart (2009) argued that it is doubtful and the endurance category, swimming and cycling; the that WADA’s anti-doping policy is effective in main- motor skill category, tennis, fencing, badminton, shooting, taining a level playing field, or is the best means of golf, etc.; and the team category, handball, rugby, hockey, protecting the health of athletes [17]. soccer, volleyball, basketball, etc. Fourteen questionnaires Various factors, such as representations, knowledge, were excluded for inappropriate responses; thus, a total of attitudes, personality, and motivation, are a great in- 454 responses (249 adults in 23 events and 205 adolescents fluence on the transformation of normative to deviant in 22 events) were used in data analysis. Table 1 shows the behaviors [18]. This option has implied the need to participants’ characteristics. evaluate factors for predicting and identifying the doping behavior in elite athletes [18]. Moreover, a Data collection procedure recent meta-analysis revealed that positive attitudes Data was collected by an interviewer-administered ques- toward doping are strong positive correlates of doping tionnaire for receiving higher response rates compared intensions and behaviors [19]. Therefore, to develop to self-administered [25] and for helping respondents targeted