PERCEIVED EFFECTS OF PHARMACOLOGICAL ERGOGENIC AIDS ON SPORTS PERFORMANCE AND HEALTH OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY ATHLETES

The study investigates the perceived effects of pharmacological ergogenic aids on health and sports performance of Nigerian university athletes with a view to increasing the credibility of athletes’ performance. The study adopted descriptive survey design. A total of 332 university athletes were randomly sampled during Nigeria University Games from four popular groups of sports: track and field athletics ball/racket and stick games, combat sports and aquatic sports. A self- designed and validated questionnaire which focuses on state and pattern of use of pharmacological ergogenic aids and their perceived effects on sports performance and health was used for this study. Percentage and chi-square statistics were used to analyze the data. The results showed that stimulants, narcotics, anabolic steroids and depressants are types of pharmacological ergogenic aids used by university athletes. The results further showed that the perceived effects of ergogenic aids on health and sports performance was not significant (X2=7.82, p>0.05.The study concluded that ergogenic aids had adverse effects including weight gain and insomnia on both health and sports performance. It was therefore recommended that drug diagnosing laboratory equipment should be available every in NUGA competition to detect doping violators and include drug education in the general school curriculum.