Prevention of doping in sport in adolescents: evaluation of a health education based intervention]

BACKGROUND: The extent of sport doping and its potential risks for health is to be considered as a problem of public health. Until now, only a very few number of prevention programs have been shown to be efficient. The aim of this prospective study was to test the benefit of a specific educational intervention to reduce the intent of adolescent athletes to use drugs. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The participants were 476 adolescent athletes involved into high-level events, 238 were included in the experimental group and 238 as control group. The intervention was divided in four stages: information on epidemiology of doping in sport, discussions about nutritional supplement and other authorized products, a drug simulating role play, and information on self-medication. The program was evaluated by a self-administrated questionnaire before, just after the intervention, and three months later. RESULTS: A significant decrease in the intention to use doping drugs, and an increase in the perception of being able to refuse doping was found in the experimental group three months after the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: This work suggests that health education based interventions are effective in preventing drug use among adolescent athletes.