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Beckett researchers to help develop anti-doping intervention for coaches
The study, led by Curtin University in Australia, aims to support the principles and aims of the Olympic Charter by developing and testing a preventative motivation theory-informed and evidence-based intervention.
The project, titled CoachMADE, will be supported by research teams from Leeds Beckett and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, with internationally-acknowledged expertise on doping and motivation research. These teams will run the same intervention in the UK and Greece.
Sue Backhouse, Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Nutrition at Leeds Beckett, said: “We are delighted to collaborate with esteemed colleagues from Australia and Greece on this innovative cross-cultural intervention study. Through our research we have highlighted that only a handful of studies have progressed to present either the outcomes of anti-doping education programmes or to develop evidence-informed doping prevention. Therefore, a patchy landscape with many gaps and uncertainties exist, particularly in relation to intervention design, delivery and evaluation. Our collaborative project responds directly to this absence of evidence. Furthermore, it targets a key influencer in doping prevention, namely the coach.”
Project lead, Professor Nikos Ntoumanis from Curtin’s School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, said the effects of such motivational interventions in terms of athlete doping-related attitudes and decisions have not been tested by any research team to date.
“We know coach-created motivational environments can influence athletes’ intention to dope and many coaches have shown willingness to address the issue, but were unable to articulate the specific means by which they can facilitate the fight against doping,” said Professor Ntoumanis.
“The project will help coaches to share existing anti-doping resources and communicate about doping with their athletes in ways that support athletes’ psychological needs. We will then compare the developed intervention against ‘usual anti-doping practice’.
“This will be the first published coach-centered intervention that will promote an anti-doping environment by focusing on how coaches communicate with their athletes in general, and about doping in particular.”
Dr Laurie Patterson, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology in the School of Sport at Leeds Beckett, has been able to integrate some of the key findings of her doctoral thesis - on the role of the coach in doping prevention - in the design of this project. She said: “My research demonstrated that existing anti-doping education programmes do not fully align with the needs of practicing coaches. Therefore, programmes should balance the current focus on compliance-based messages (e.g., doping control processes) with content that enables coaches to foster a doping-free training and competition environment.”
The project will have three phases which will include customising training material to generate anti-doping specific content; a cluster randomised control trial involving some 600 athletes across Australia, Great Britain and Greece; and finally analysing the data and disseminating the results of the intervention via coach information sessions, printed material, policy briefings, media interviews and social media engagement.
Researchers believe the intervention has significant practical use as it identifies specific means by which coaches can create an adaptive motivational climate within which they can deliver anti-doping education.
Aligned with the IOC’s funding call, the findings from this project will have a direct impact on the daily life of the clean athlete, and inform the development of more efficient and evidence-based educational programs and campaigns to prevent doping in sport.