Athletic Trainers' Knowledge of Performance Enhancing Drugs

Abstract

Performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) have been around for years and have recently become an issue in sports. They have effected all levels of sports from high school to professional. There has been 2.9-4.0 million Americans to use some sort of anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) (Pop et al., 2014). It’s not only steroids that are used as PEDs there is a long list that will be reviewed in this study. These PEDs have evolved over the years and new drugs are continuously changing. In organized sport Athletic Trainers (ATs) are the primary resource for athletes when it comes to injuries, knowledge on nutrition, and supplements (Burns et al., 2004). It is important for ATs to be able to provide relevant information on PEDs. This study has developed a test to determine an ATs knowledge of PEDs. It will hopefully benefit the patients that ATs treat by encouraging better knowledge of PEDs.