An Evaulation of a Cooperation Model to Reduce the Use of and Access to Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) At Fitness Centres in the County of Stockholm

Aim: The aim of STAD’s doping prevention work is to develop a cooperation model to reduce the use of and access to anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) at fitness centres and in the county of Stockholm.

Material and method: To become a quality assured fitness centre, the facility has to meet the following criteria:

1 Owners, training managers and instructors must have completed the training offered within the “100% pure hard training” project

2 The facility must have formulated a policy on hormone preparations which is applicable to all staff and people who train at the facility

3 The facility must have a cooperation initiative with the police

 A scientific evaluation has been carried out in order to measure the effects of STAD’s work. When work began in 2007, a number of facilities (20) were selected as intervention fitness centres. These were then compared with the same number of control fitness centres.

 Results: Evaluation of the work (questionnaire studies) between 2007 and 2010 indicates that at the training facilities included in STAD’s work (intervention fitness centres), the number of members stating that the fitness centres at which they train has a policy against doping has increased from 20% in 2007 to 35% in 2010. At the control centres, these figures were 16% for 2007 and 16% for 2010. The difference between the intervention centres and the control centres is statistically significant.

The number of members stating that they have been offered the opportunity to buy and/or try AAS between 2007 and 2010 has fallen from 25.6% to 18.4% at the intervention fitness centres. At the control fitness centres, however, this figure has risen from 21.1% to 26.4%. The difference is statistically significant.

The number of men stating that they have used AAS at some point has fallen over the period from 4.0% to 3.6% at the intervention fitness centres and has increased from 3.0% to

5.1% at the control fitness centres. The number of men stating that they have used AAS over the last 12 months has fallen over the period from 1.4% to 0.9% at the intervention centres and has increased from 1.5% to 2.7% at the control centres, and men stating that they have used AAS over the last 30 days has fallen from 0.4% to 0.2% at the intervention centres and has increased from 0.6% to 1.3% at the control centres.