Doping-related attitudes and intentions among Croatian athletes: Examining theory of planned behavior constructs and broader psychosocial correlates

Abstract

Bacckground: Doping continues to pose persistent challenges in competitive sport. Although prior studies have investigated Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) constructs together with a range of psychosocial correlates of doping, evidence from large and heterogeneous athlete samples remains limited.Objective: This study provides a large-sample contextual replication and extension of previous TPB-based doping research by examining associations among TPB constructs, performance-enhancement attitudes, self-esteem, achievement goal orientation, sport motivation, descriptive norms, and self-reported use of prohibited substances for performance enhancement in 988 Croatian athletes from team and individual sports.Methods: Analyses included psychometric evaluation, descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, group comparisons, and hierarchical multiple regression.Results: Overall, 7.6% of participants reported prohibited substance use at least once during their sporting careers. Male athletes reported more favorable doping-related and performance-enhancement attitudes and stronger behavioral intentions. Individual-sport athletes and athletes in the lower competition-level group more frequently reported lifetime prohibited-substance use. Higher self-esteem, stronger task orientation, and greater intrinsic motivation were associated with less favorable doping-related and performance-enhancement attitudes and weaker behavioral intentions, whereas lower self-esteem, ego orientation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation were associated with more permissive attitudes and stronger behavioral intentions. Attitudes toward doping showed the strongest unique association with behavioral intention, followed by performance-enhancement attitudes and subjective norms. The findings replicate previously established associations between TPB constructs and doping intention while extending the evidence base by demonstrating systematic associations with a broader set of psychosocial characteristics in a large sample of Croatian athletes.Conclusion: These findings provide context-specific evidence that may inform future longitudinal research and the development of psychosocially informed anti-doping interventions.