Enhancing attention and recall of doping prevention messages by testing the influence of adolescent athletes’ perceived vulnerability to doping

Summary

Our previous research shows that many adolescents do not consider doping to be relevant enough in their age group or competition level to attract their attention to messages. Therefore, there is a distinct need to increase adolescents’ awareness of their personal risk (or susceptibility) to doping to increase the personal relevance and effectiveness of doping-prevention messages. The initial goal of this two-phase study was to improve the effectiveness of doping-prevention messages by testing a new strategy for increasing the perceived relevance of the messages among adolescent athletes aged 13 to 16 years.
 
Methodology

Across 2 studies, the research explored perceived susceptibility to initiate doping and factors associated with those perceptions among adolescent athletes aged 13-16 years. Data for both studies were collected online via Qualtrics survey system and participant panel recruitment. In Study 1, 263 participants viewed a series of vignettes depicting common risk scenarios for doping initiation (initially created for the focus group discussion), and rated the likelihood of those situations occurring to them or their peers. In Study 2, the findings from Study 1 were used to build two brief interventions and tested their effects, alone or in combination, on the perceived susceptibility to doping among 309  adolescent athletes.

Results

Participant ratings suggest the topic of overcoming physical adversity as most relevant to the adolescent experience in sports. In addition, participants consistently rated other athletes, teammates, or friends as more likely to exhibit doping behaviors than themselves. The participants also expressed misconceptions about doping that may inform future education interventions. Perceived likelihood of becoming a professional or Olympic-level athlete (over and above an athletes current competitive level) was a predictor of both perceived susceptibility to doping as well as attitudes toward doping. In addition, use of nutritional supplements significantly predicted perceived susceptibility to doping.

Significance for Clean Sport

Overall, findings from both studies highlight situations and doping-related factors that are most relevant to adolescent athletes, and reflect the need for doping-prevention interventions that are informative, engaging, and easy to disseminate. The findings from this research are helpful for WADA and their stakeholders to make anti-doping messages more effective by being relevant to adolescent athletes, with the view of reducing favorable attitudes and susceptibility towards using PEDs and thus reduce the prevalence of doping among young people.