Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Drug Abuse among Sports Men and Women in Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice on drug abuse otherwise 
known as doping among sports men and women. This was a cross-sectional study based on a self
report questionnaire which was carried out among sports persons at the National Stadium, Surulere, 
Lagos. Systematic random sampling was used to select 345 participants (208 males and 137 females). 
The data from the study was analysed using frequency measures and chi-square procedure. Findings 
revealed a fair level of knowledge on the harmful effects and health implications of drug abuse for 
performance enhancement among study participants. According to the participants’ perception and 
behavioural attitude, respondents (44.4%) feel that someone should use drugs to boost performance in 
sports while 55.6% of the respondents do not agree with such attitude. Most respondents (56.0%) 
perceive most achievement records in sports to be related to drug use. The difference in the attitude 
towards doping between respondents level of education is significant (p<0.05). The respondents 
admitted that they have used the following prohibited drugs; alcohol (57.2%), ephedrine (11.8%), 
codeine (8.2%), steroid (5.6%), cocaine (5.6%), insulin (5.0%), marijuana (4.0%), heroin (1.1%), 
amphetamine (0.7%), cannabis (0.4%) and hygroton (0.4%). Findings also revealed that some of the 
sports persons also abuse OTC [e.g acetaminophen and NSAIDs] analgesic medicines (1.1%) and non
orthodox-herbal concoctions (1.8%) for performance enhancement. It was therefore concluded that the 
knowledge, attitude and practice of sports person on drug abuse is unfortunate. Considerably, more 
research is needed to develop effective prevention strategy that combines education, health and sports 
based interventions.