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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health

Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1625859

DIFFERENCES IN ANTI-DOPING KNOWLEDGE AMONG SERBIAN PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES

Provisionally accepted
Zoran VesicZoran Vesic1Jelena StojicevicJelena Stojicevic2Nemanja RancicNemanja Rancic2*Gorica MilovanovicGorica Milovanovic3Jelena S RasicJelena S Rasic3Nenad RadivojevicNenad Radivojevic3Goran PrebegGoran Prebeg4Goran AtanasovGoran Atanasov5Milos TodorovicMilos Todorovic6Sonja MarjanovicSonja Marjanovic6Milica Vukasinovic VesicMilica Vukasinovic Vesic3,7
  • 1Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 2Military Medical Academy, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 3Antidoping Agency of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 4Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 5Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Management, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 6Faculty of Medicine of the Military Medical Academy, University of Defence, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 7Faculty of Sport, University „Union - Nikola Tesla“, Belgrade, Serbia

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Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the impact of anti-doping education among professional athletes on anti-doping knowledge. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted on differences in knowledge towards doping among 404 professional athletes in relation to their education about doping. Results: Participants who underwent education answered correctly significantly more often on most of the questions compared to participants without education (difference of about 20-30% in the rate of correct answers is in favor of participants with education on every question; 8.49 (SD 2.75) vs. 11.04 (SD 1.89); p<0.001). The majority of participants in the group with prior education against doping answered 10 or more questions correctly out of a total of 13, while the group without prior education against doping most commonly had 7 to 11 correct answers (p<0.001). The most significant predictors of correct answers are gender, number of years of training, type of sport (individual or team sport), and prior education about doping. The largest contribution to this model comes from the variable "prior education against doping,", followed by the type of sport. Conclusions: Our research shows that prior antidoping education is effective and has the essential contribution on athletes' knowledge about doping.

Keywords: Anti-doping education, knowledge, Athletes, Sport, Public Health

Received: 09 May 2025; Accepted: 11 Jul 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Vesic, Stojicevic, Rancic, Milovanovic, Rasic, Radivojevic, Prebeg, Atanasov, Todorovic, Marjanovic and Vukasinovic Vesic. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Nemanja Rancic, Military Medical Academy, Belgrade, Serbia

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material