"And that's how it all began": An examination of personal and situational factors that lead to doping in sport

Abstract

To address the problem of doping in sport, primary prevention targeting adolescent athletes is critical. Few primary prevention interventions are effective, suggesting the need for new approaches including content that is engaging, relatable, and addresses realistic situations athletes may encounter. To begin building this content, the purpose of this study was to explore athletes' perspectives on the personal and situational factors that lead to the initiation of doping. Based in an interpretive paradigm, relativist ontology, and transactional epistemology, interviews were conducted with 21 young adult athletes who competed in sports as adolescents. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. To communicate the richness of the participants' stories and the complexity of doping initiation, data analysis, interpretation, and presentation were conducted through thematic analysis and the development of creative nonfiction stories. Three stories were created that detail the interactions between key characters and situations within sporting, social, and family contexts that lead an athlete toward doping. The stories include situations in which pressure to dope is placed upon an athlete both deliberately and inadvertently. Emphasis is placed on the athlete's appraisal of their personal relationships and situations as their appraisal plays a critical role in whether they will initiate doping. Quotations are presented throughout to help express the stories in participants' own words. This study extends a new mode of knowledge production within the doping literature, creative nonfiction story-telling, to present the experiences of young athletes facing pressure to dope in a manner that can be built directly into prevention interventions.

Acknowledgments: This project has been carried out with the support of the World Anti-Doping Agency