Prevalence and Psychosocial Factors of Illicit Drug Use among Nigeria Elite Athletes
Joseph Afolayan Adegboyega

Abstract
Considerable attention has been focused upon the use of drugs as an artificial means of enhancing athletics performance by both amateur and professional athletes. Although sports administrators are doing a lot to discourage the practice, yet the incidence appears to be on the increase. It is against this background that the study investigated the prevalence and psychosocial factors of drug use among elite athletes in Nigeria. The population of this study consisted of all the athletes (male and female) who have represented Nigeria at least once at an international competition. A total of 220 athletes were randomly sampled from eleven popular sports in Nigeria. A set of questionnaire developed and validated by the researcher was used to collect data for the study. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Scheffe post-hoc analysis was used to locate any significant f-ratio. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that participants in this study had use ephe&drine, caffeine, anabolic steroids and dianabol. Also, there was a significant influence of psychological factors on drug use among the participants. Participants in team sports scored the psychological reasons for drug use significantly higher than participants in individual and dual sports. However, sociological factors have no significant influence on drug use among the participants. These data may help physical education teachers for effective teaching of drug education in schools.

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