Urine doping controls: the athletes’ perspective

Abstract

Urine doping controls have become a part of the daily lives of elite athletes. However, little knowledge is available on how athletes perceive these controls. In order to investigate this question, four hundred elite athletes completed an online survey in which they replied to open and closed questions about their experiences. The results showed that athletes approve of doping testing and that the majority of them are careful to report all substances they have consumed. Fear of a false positive test result despite not having taken forbidden substances is of concern for about half of the athletes, and significantly more for female and younger athletes. Furthermore, a third of the athletes report about experiencing stress caused by urination difficulty during the control, and a smaller group (approximately one out of seven) feel their personal integrity is violated because someone is watching them urinate. In addition, a quarter of the athletes feel that urine doping controls performed at their home are an invasion of privacy. Suggestions for the improvement of urine doping controls as well as for future research are given in the article.

Keywords:

• false positives
• urination difficulties
• paruresis
• urine marker
• drug testing

Acknowledgement

This research was financed by the Strategic Research Council of Denmark.