Intercollegiate sports participation and non-medical drug use.

The purpose of this study was to determine if participation in a competitive intercollegiate sports programme would modify the non-medical drug and substance-use behaviour patterns of the participants as compared with their non-athletic counterparts. Sixty-seven intercollegiate swimmers and members of varsity swim teams at six American universities comprised the athlete population and were compared with 678 non-athletic under-graduates. A chi-square analysis of the data indicated no significant difference between athlete and non-athlete with respect to the most commonly used mood-modifying drugs. There was also no significant difference in drug-use behaviour between male and female athletes with respect to non-medical use of the common mod-modifying drugs although there was a significant difference between male and female athletes with respect to anabolic steroid use. A level of significance at the 0.05 level of confidence indicated male athletes more likely to use anabolic steroids than female athletes.