Introduction: The use of methods among players to improve physical performance is as old as the history of sports. Today individuals, including adolescents, continue to employ a wide variety of drugs in the hope of improving their athletic performance. The practice of doping is often related to serious health problems and even death but the problem is not “only” health-related. More precisely, doping is considered an unethical and unfair practice which allows one to go beyond natural genetic potential and therefore leads to an unfair advancement in an athlete’s natural physical and physiological ability. Although athletes are becoming increasingly familiar with anti-doping rules, but there is still a lack of knowledge and the side effects of doping. Therefore, this study sought to investigate knowledge and attitudes of tennis athletes about doping.
Methodology: The subjects of study were 364 tennis players from Shiraz, Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, Tehran and Mashhad cities. As in part of the inclusion criteria, all subjects were over 18 years of age, having a minimum of 3 years of playing tennis and participating at least in one state Reputable game. To perform this study, a standard questionnaire was used. To survey the study’s goals, mean, percent, frequency values, diagram and chi-square test were used.
Results: Tennis athletes have 35.07% knowledge regarding doping and they gave on average 6.31 correct answers to 18 questions on knowledge of doping. The majority of athletes (51.92%) do not intend to use doping. However, 17.31% of athletes are ready to use doping preparations if it is not dangerous to their health and 1.65% intend to use doping preparations if it contributes to better performance of them. 26.92% of athletes believe that the doping is rarely used in Iran and 11.54% believe that the majority of athletes use doping preparations. It is interesting that 39.01% of athletes do not trust the suggestions of coaches concerning doping.
Discussion: Although the majority of athletes do not intend to use doping preparations, considering the low level of knowledge of tennis athletes on doping and its subsequent risks, the low number of subjects who intend to use doping should be considered in the measures of countrywide anti-doping organizations to reduce such risks.