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  • The risk environment of anabolic–androgenic steroid users in the UK: Examining motivations, practices and accounts of use

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    SantosPUB2886.pdf (156.1Kb)
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    Accepted Manuscript (AM)
    Author(s)
    Santos, Gisella Hanley
    Coomber, Ross
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Coomber, Ross
    Year published
    2017
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    Abstract
    Background: The numbers using illicit anabolic–androgenic steroids are a cause of concern for those seeking to reduce health harms. Using the ‘risk environment’ as a conceptual framework to better comprehend how steroid users’ practices and perspectives impact on health risks, this paper examines steroid user motivations, patterns of use, and the ways in which these practices are accounted for. Methods: As part of a wider mixed-method study into performance and image enhancing drug (PIED) use and supply in one mid-sized city in South West England, qualitative interviews were undertaken with 22 steroid users. Participants ...
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    Background: The numbers using illicit anabolic–androgenic steroids are a cause of concern for those seeking to reduce health harms. Using the ‘risk environment’ as a conceptual framework to better comprehend how steroid users’ practices and perspectives impact on health risks, this paper examines steroid user motivations, patterns of use, and the ways in which these practices are accounted for. Methods: As part of a wider mixed-method study into performance and image enhancing drug (PIED) use and supply in one mid-sized city in South West England, qualitative interviews were undertaken with 22 steroid users. Participants were recruited from a local safer injecting service, rather than bodybuilding gyms, in order to access a wider cross-section of steroid users. A limitation of this approach is potential sample bias towards those showing more health optimising behaviours. Results: The research findings highlight that patterns of steroid use varied according to motivation for use, experience and knowledge gained. Most reported having had little or no knowledge on steroids prior to use, with first use being based on information gained from fellow users or suppliers—sometimes inaccurate or incomplete. In accounting for their practices, many users differentiated themselves from other groups of steroid users—for example, older users expressed concern over patterns of use of younger and (what they saw as) inexperienced steroid users. Implicit in these accounts were intimations that the ‘other’ group engaged in riskier behaviour than they did. Conclusion: Examining social contexts of use and user beliefs and motivations is vital to understanding how ‘risk’ behaviours are experienced so that this, in turn, informs harm reduction strategies. This paper examines the ways in which use of steroids is socially situated and the implications of this for policy and practice.
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    Journal Title
    International Journal of Drug Policy
    Volume
    40
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.11.005
    Copyright Statement
    © 2017 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited.
    Subject
    Biomedical and clinical sciences
    Human society
    Criminology not elsewhere classified
    Psychology
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/338444
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    • Journal articles

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