Feasibility of implementing current best clinical practice for people who are using anabolic androgenic steroids within a Swiss primary care practice: a quality assurance study

With this first quality assurance study, we demonstrate that integration of current best clinical practice for anabolic androgenic steroids users in recreational sports appears to be feasible with high acceptance in a Swiss primary care practice. Furthermore, those patients may engage in high-risk behaviours and a high prevalence of comorbid medical conditions was demonstrated. Anabolic androgenic steroids users likely benefit from integrated medical care provided and coordinated in a primary health care setting. On the basis of the initial study results, these services were continued at a larger scale to further assess as well as mitigate health risks among this user population. Importantly, current doping legislation was demonstrated to be a major limitation to provision of adequate medical care for this user population, thus changes in legislation are crucial to avert this growing public health threat.