Incentives and deterrents for drug-taking behaviour in elite sports: a holistic and developmental approach

ABSTRACT

Research question: In order to gain a better understanding of the key decision factors that lead some athletes to use doping and others to stay clean, this study used the Push Pull Anti-push Anti-pull framework and the Holistic Athletic Career model as theoretical frameworks in order to capture the complex nature of this decision process.

Research methods: Multiple qualitative methods (i.e. face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews, biographical analyses) were used to explore the perspectives of 36 Dutch-speaking Belgian (former) elite athletes, 5 elite coaches, 4 doping ‘experts’, and 3 self-admitted doping users. Data were analysed using deductive content analysis.

Results and findings: Incentives as well as deterrents for doping use, including both current factors and perceived future risks or benefits, were found at different levels of athletes’ development (i.e. athletic, psychological, psychosocial, financial, and policy levels). Furthermore, the decision to use doping was found to be related to critical points during athletes’ career.

Implications: Detailed insight into the complex decision whether or not to use doping can assist stakeholders in high performance management in the development of preventive anti-doping strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-doping policy
• doping
• Holistic Athletic Career model
• performance-enhancing drugs
• push pull

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Nathalie Rosier http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2880-4233

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the World Anti-Doping Agency [grant number AII96] and NADO Vlaanderen [grant number VLV168].