Die dopingproblematik aus sicht des sportmediziners: Erfahrungen von deutschen verbandsärzten und Bayerischen sportmedizinern

Because of the incidence of new doping affairs as well as the great public interest sports physicians can hardly elude from the discussion on the doping problem and the exigency of doping prevention. To improve the use of available sources of information in the context of doping prevention 2667 sports physicians were interviewed about the athletes they coach and on their state of knowledge. There is a high acceptance of sports physicians as contact persons for this sensible topic. In their daily work they are frequently addressed by athletes on the issue of doping, mostly in search of information and education. It seems to be a requirement of information in particular about nutritional supplements and the conformance of drugs with the official list of prohibited substances and methods. A high amount of sports physicians, who answered the questionnaire, also observed pathological changes possibly due to doping and made it to a subject of discussion with those athletes. More than half of the sports physicians knew about a real abuse ob doping substances of those athletes. From the sports physicians' point of view the education about biomedical side effects and health risks seems to be most effective in terms of doping prevention. In their apprenticeship only the fewest sports physicians obtained information about doping. Thus most of the sports physicians wish more information for their own further education as well as to refer it to the athletes. Although sports physicians are confronted with the issue of doping quite frequently and thus could and should assume an active role in doping prevention, a great part of them does not feel informed enough to cope with this task.