Substance use among sportive adolescents in the French-speaking part of Switzerland

The main objectives of this study were:
1. To compare the prevalence of use of psychoactive (both legal and illegal) and performanceenhancing/doping substances between youth aged 16‐20 years practicing sports and those not practicing sports in the French‐speaking part of Switzerland.
2. To compare the characteristics of sports practicing youth who use psychoactive and/or doping substances with those who do not.
3. To assess whether the use of psychoactive substances is associated to the use of doping substances.
4. To describe the reasons why sedentary adolescents do not practice sports and whether there is an association between being currently sedentary and substance use. [...]
Conclusions. Overall, the protective effect of sports practice against the use of psychoactive substances depended on the substance. [...] The growing trend for using substances to enhance performances among sportive adolescents seems to be confirmed within our sample. In fact, three quarter of sportive adolescents surveyed in the French-speaking part of Switzerland reported active use of such products, with caffeinated products, sports drinks and nutritional supplements being the most cited. [...] Although sportive adolescents in competitive sport practice are associated to the use of performance‐enhancing substances, the same is not true regarding psychoactive ones. [...] A link between psychoactive and performance‐enhancing substances seems to exist as all adolescents reporting either smoking, having misused alcohol recently or currently using cannabis reported higher proportions of doping substance consumption. [Extracts of the publication]