Evaluationof Knowledge And Attitudes On Doping By Football Athletes, Coaches And Sponsors In Malawi

ABSTRACT

Knowledge and attitude on the use of performance enhancing substances among athletes are important aspects in the fight against doping in sports . This study determined knowledge and attitudes of football athletes, coaches and sponsors on doping in Malawi. It established reported prevalence of the use of performance enhancing substances among football athletes, assessed knowledge of football athletes, coaches and sponsors and examined their attitu des respectively. It respectively determined whether there was an association between selected demographic factors of football athletes, coaches and sponsors and their knowledge and attitudes on the use of performance enhancing substances in football in M alawi . The study targeted 450 footba ll athletes, 45 coaches, 15 team sponsors and 8 competition sponsors in Malaw i. Football clubs for athletes and coaches were randomly sampled in the citie s of Blantyre and Lilongwe. 240 athletes and 24 coaches attached to the sampled football clubs participated in the study. Sponsors (15) of football were purpos ive ly sampled from the cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe. Using the cross section survey design, the selected athletes, coaches and sponsors responded to self re ported structured questionnaires. The obtained data was analysed using Pearson Chi Square, One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Post Hoc Tukeys’ HSD in the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS 20). The study found that participants had hig h (73.4%) m edium (20.8%) and low (5.8%) levels of knowledge on the use of performance enhancing substances. Athletes, coaches and s ponsors had negative attitude towards doping. Association existed between knowledge and age of athletes ; athletes p