Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, 72076, Tübingen, Germany.
Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, 02478, USA.
Sports Med. 2018 Jan;48(1):211-219. doi: 10.1007/s40279-017-0765-4.
Doping in sports compromises fair play and endangers health. To deter doping among elite athletes, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) oversees testing of several hundred thousand athletic blood and urine samples annually, of which 1-2% test positive. Measures using the Athlete Biological Passport suggest a higher mean prevalence of about 14% positive tests. Biological testing, however, likely fails to detect many cutting-edge doping techniques, and thus the true prevalence of doping remains unknown.
We surveyed 2167 athletes at two sporting events: the 13th International Association of Athletics Federations Word Championships in Athletics (WCA) in Daegu, South Korea in August 2011 and the 12th Quadrennial Pan-Arab Games (PAG) in Doha, Qatar in December 2011. To estimate the prevalence of doping, we utilized a "randomized response technique," which guarantees anonymity for individuals when answering a sensitive question. We also administered a control question at PAG assessing past-year use of supplements.
The estimated prevalence of past-year doping was 43.6% (95% confidence interval 39.4-47.9) at WCA and 57.1% (52.4-61.8) at PAG. The estimated prevalence of past-year supplement use at PAG was 70.1% (65.6-74.7%). Sensitivity analyses, assessing the robustness of these estimates under numerous hypothetical scenarios of intentional or unintentional noncompliance by respondents, suggested that we were unlikely to have overestimated the true prevalence of doping.
Doping appears remarkably widespread among elite athletes, and remains largely unchecked despite current biological testing. The survey technique presented here will allow future investigators to generate continued reference estimates of the prevalence of doping.
运动中的兴奋剂使用行为破坏了公平竞赛的原则，危害了运动员的健康。为了遏制精英运动员的兴奋剂使用行为，世界反兴奋剂机构（WADA）每年对数十万份运动员的血液和尿液样本进行检测，其中 1-2%的样本呈阳性。运动员生物护照等措施表明，阳性检测的平均患病率约为 14%。然而，生物检测可能无法检测到许多尖端的兴奋剂技术，因此，兴奋剂的真实流行率仍然未知。
我们在两个体育赛事中对 2167 名运动员进行了调查：2011 年 8 月在韩国大邱举行的第 13 届国际田径联合会世界田径锦标赛（WCA）和 2011 年 12 月在卡塔尔多哈举行的第 12 届四年度泛阿拉伯运动会（PAG）。为了估计兴奋剂的流行率，我们利用了“随机响应技术”，当个人回答敏感问题时，该技术可确保他们的匿名性。我们还在 PAG 上进行了一项控制问题调查，评估过去一年中使用补充剂的情况。
WCA 上过去一年兴奋剂使用的估计患病率为 43.6%（95%置信区间 39.4-47.9），PAG 上的估计患病率为 57.1%（52.4-61.8）。PAG 上过去一年使用补充剂的估计患病率为 70.1%（65.6-74.7%）。敏感性分析评估了在受访者有意或无意不遵守规定的各种假设情况下，这些估计值的稳健性，结果表明我们不太可能高估了兴奋剂的真实流行率。
兴奋剂在精英运动员中似乎非常普遍，尽管目前进行了生物检测，但仍然基本上没有得到遏制。这里提出的调查技术将使未来的研究人员能够继续生成兴奋剂流行率的参考估计值。
