Perspectives of athletes and athlete support personnel about anti-doping systems from Chile and Colombia: Perceived effectiveness, determinants and implementation strategies

Summary: 

This projects aims to evaluate the current situation of policies oriented towards doping control and prevention and the promotion of healthy and clean behavior in Chile and Colombia, a two-phase comparative mixed study will be carried out.

Methodology:

In the first phase, two processes will be developed in parallel; a systematic review of this type of interventions will be carried out in the SciELO, SCOPUS/ El Sevier and Clarivate Analytics/ Web of Science databases in order to investigate bibliometric data in the field and to carry out a meta-analysis that allows distilling which are the central components of successful interventions. In addition, pro athletes from Chile and Colombia will be surveyed. These will examine their knowledge of international standards (WADA Play True Quiz), their knowledge and attitudes towards their national public policies, and the potential improvements that can be made to these systems. To obtain an adequate estimate of the statistics in each population and to achieve a comparison with a 99% confidence level, a 5% margin of error and assuming a small effect size of 0.30, we will seek to reach a sample of 350 athletes from each country. In a second phase, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with ASP from Chile and Colombia. Through these interviews, we will seek to know how the processes of control and prevention of doping are implemented, as well as the promotion of healthy and clean sports behavior. At the same time, their personal practices oriented to these objectives will be investigated, as well as the contextual barriers and facilitators that affect the achievement of the goals of these innovations.

Results:

This is an ongoing two-years research project whose results are expected to be presented in 2025.

Potential significance for Clean Sport

It is hoped that the results of this research will contribute to the feedback of public policies and programs in Chile and Colombia. The aim is to give an account of the situation of these policies in both countries so that these data will allow a more efficient use of the material and human resources available. At the same time, through the presentation of the central components, it is expected to offer valuable information for the design of national and local interventions.