Athletes from Great Britain report greater doping likelihood than Greek and Italian athletes: A cross-sectional survey of over 4,000 athletes

Abstract

In the past twenty years, a large body of research has examined who is more likely to dope as a function of participant variables, such as gender, sport type, and competition level. However, this research is limited as studies are often conducted on modest sample sizes from one country. To overcome this issue, we recruited a large sample of athletes across three countries to examine differences in doping likelihood as a function of participant variables. Athletes (N = 4,644) were recruited from Great Britain (n = 2,505), Greece (n = 1,044), and Italy (n = 1,095) and asked to complete an anonymous measure of doping likelihood. Results indicated that doping likelihood scores were greater in men than women, for athletes competing in non-Olympic sports (e.g., American football, kickboxing, netball) than Olympic sports (e.g., Athletics, basketball, football) and in British athletes than both Greek and Italian athletes. We found an interaction between country and competitive level. Specifically, in Great Britain, higher competitive level athletes reported greater doping likelihood than lower competitive level athletes, which was not found for Greek and Italian athletes. Our results highlight that athletes report greater doping likelihood for those that are 1) from Great Britain, 2) men, and 3) participating in non-Olympic sports. We also show that differences in doping likelihood between competition levels may differ depending on country of residence.