Performance-enhancing drug-use among amateur sportsmen and women in Cameroon: A study of knowledge, attitudes and practices

Summary

The use of doping drugs in Cameroon is common. Even more common is drug-use among amateur sportsmen and women. Despite this bleak picture, little if anything at all, is being done to educate, raise awareness and sensitize sportsmen and women in the country about the negative health effects and criminal consequences of drug use in sports. Evidence on the current situation would be useful in informing ongoing and future programs and providing compelling arguments for increased attention to the problem. This study sought to accomplish the following objectives:

1. To investigate awareness and use of lawful and unlawful substances by young athletes.

2. To identify athletes’ sources of knowledge about lawful and unlawful substances.

3. To study young athletes’ doping behavior and their determinants, including voluntary and involuntary doping.

4. To identify circuits of acquisition of drugs available to young athletes.

5. To study perceptions regarding Cameroon’s anti-doping measures, including their weaknesses and strengths.

Methodology

The study was cross-sectional in design and utilized a multi-method data gathering strategy that combined quantitative and qualitative techniques. A face-to-face questionnaire was administered to 1,600 randomly selected young athletes from 7 major sport federations in Cameroon drawn from four study sites: Yaounde, Douala, Bamenda and Garoua. Questionnaire items addressed the following themes: Knowledge, perceptions of doping, and doping experiences. In addition, an interview guide was used to collect complementary qualitative data from key informants on the following: reasons for doping; strengths and weaknesses of current anti-doping measures; and the role each sector they represent could play to enhance doping prevention.

Results

There is evidence that the practice of doping is growing uncontained among sportsmen and women in Cameroon. Moreover, anti-doping measures exist mainly in theory as they are seldom implemented in practice. The evidence suggests an urgent need for measures to rescue the situation before doping becomes an institutionalized practice in Cameroon sports. For any initiatives to have an impact in the country, the gap between anti-doping policies and implementation would need to be closed. Rigorous implementation of preventive and repressive measures, e.g. education and sensitization, doping tests, penalties for doping offences, etc, is critically needed. A fair amount of evidence-based advocacy targeting policy makers could bring about the desired changes to both policy and implementation and ensure that an impending doping explosion is avoided in the country.

Significance for Clean Sport

The study brings useful information about the doping situation in Cameroon. Key findings about knowledge of lawful and unlawful drugs including food supplements, attitudes of athletes towards drug-use, circuits of acquisition of drugs, implementation of anti-doping measures, Knowledge of anti-doping regulation, and external and internal pressures to use doping substances are given.