Pharmacy professionals’ knowledge, attitude and practice towards doping in sports: A Cross-sectional study in Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Doping is appearing as a major problem in Ethiopia, a country decorated with medium and long-distance runners. To protect athletes from doping, pharmacists can be the first port of call for advising athletes on drug treatment. Hence, to fuel the anti-doping movement, it is crucial to explore the knowledge, attitude, and practice of community pharmacy professionals. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the community pharmacy professionals’ knowledge, attitude, and practices towards doping in sports in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey, involving 336 study participants, was conducted in selected community pharmacies of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from April to May 2018. RESULTS: Of 336 study participants, most of them knew the word “doping” and out of these, 51.9 % of them wrote the definition of doping correctly. Most respondents classified narcotics, hormone modulators, growth factors, and β-2 agonists correctly. Almost one-third of the professionals agreed that they have adequate information about doping and that doping is a public health problem. Among the participants, only 33.4 % were confronted with "suspicious of doping substance” without a prescription over the last 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: Although most pharmacy professionals lack doping-specific knowledge and adequate training required to be operative in doping prevention, most of them perceive doping as a public health problem although the curriculum does not have good coverage about doping.