Abstract
Drug testing is widely performed at the competitive level, both professional and amateur, and efforts to prevent doping are underway on a global scale.
The sports-pharmacist system was launched by the Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) in 2009 and recommends the anti-doping activities to be conducted by sports-pharmacists.
In this study, we surveyed the awareness of doping among high school athletes enrolled in physical education and sports courses and their coaches, with the objective of identifying anti-doping activities that require intervention by sports-pharmacists and pharmacists.
Responses were obtained from 1052 athletes (collection rate: 93.2％) and 83 coaches (collection rate: 100.0％). The questionnaire results revealed a low level of knowledge on doping-related issues such as “careless doping” and “therapeutic use exemptions.” The results also suggest that the coaches showed a greater willingness to attend training sessions on doping than the high school athletes. Activities by pharmacists and sports-pharmacists will be important in the future in order to protect athletes and coaches from suffering the disadvantages of doping.
