The Prevalence of Anabolic Steroid Misuse and the Awareness about Its Negative Effects among Bodybuilders in Karaj City

Regarding the increase in the misuse of anabolic steroids among young athletes particularly bodybuilding and power lifting athletes, this study aims to specify the degree of misuse prevalence anabolic steroid and the awareness of the side effects of such drugs among Karaj bodybuilders. This study is descriptive. All the bodybuilders of Karaj city was the participants of this research. The measurement instrument of this research was a questionnaire that contained 25 questions (7 questions were for background information, 9 questions were for awareness, 4 questions for attitudes about use of such drugs and the left 5 ones were for misuse prevalence) that distributed among 320 bodybuilding athletes of different parts of Karaj. The response rate was 63.75% (240 persons from total 320 persons). At last, the current research output analyzed by the SPSS software and descriptive and inferential statistics. The analysis showed that 62.7% of athletes that participated in the research used such drugs. Also, the data analysis showed that there was a meaningful relationship between the sport histories of the involved participants with misuse prevalence (p<0.05). But, there was no significant relationship between sports history and awareness about drugs (p>0.05). In addition to this, data analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between misuse prevalence and wrong attitudes about anabolic steroid (p< 0.05). The comparison of the current study results about the misuse of anabolic steroid with a similar research at 1382 showed 140% increase in the misuse of these drugs. This study indicates the high use of anabolic steroids among bodybuilders. According to this, we understand that the bodybuilders in Karaj don’t consult with specialist in this field get wrong information from unprofessional people. This leads the high misuse of such drugs. So, it is recommended to hold the prevention programs and athletes training about the side effects of anabolic steroids.