A Systematic Examination of Gain- and Loss-Framed Content in Educational Resources Targeting the Prevention of Performance Enhancing Substance Use Among Athletes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to systematically identify educational health messages aimed at preventing doping among adolescent athletes to determine and evaluate the degree to which they include gain- and loss-framed content. We systematically searched for educational resources that targeted the prevention of performance-enhancing substance use and reviewed their content for framed messages. Our search yielded 60 resources with 88.40% non-framed and 11.37% loss-framed. The resources included almost no gain-framed content (0.23%) despite theoretical suggestions that gain-framed messages may be effective in this context. Our findings suggest a need to test gain-framed doping prevention messages as a means to enhance the efficacy of doping prevention initiatives.