Athlete support personnel (ASP) failing to meet responsibilities under the World Anti-Doping Code risk sanction. It is unclear whether the poor knowledge of responsibilities seen in sports physicians and coaches applies to other ASP (e.g. administrators, chiropractors, family, nutritionists, physiotherapists, psychologists and trainers). A purposive sample of Australian ASP (n=292) responded to a survey on knowledge of anti-doping rules (35 true/false questions), ethical beliefs and practice, and attitudes towards performance enhancement.Some ASP declined to participate claiming doping was irrelevant to their practice.Physicians were the most knowledgeable (30.8/35), with family and trainers the least (26.0/35). ASP reported improvements were needed to support anti-doping education (e.g. basis for anti-doping) and practice (e.g. rules). ASP also had a slightly negative attitude towards performance enhancement. Linear regression showed being a sports physician, providing support at the elite level, and 15 years experience influenced knowledge. The results confirm gaps in knowledge, and suggest more effort is needed to engage with ASP anti-doping education and practice. Examining physician and elite level ASP acquisition of knowledge may be a way forward. Future work on the context within which ASP experience anti-doping is needed, exploring acquisition and translation of knowledge into practice.
Current research ethics processes, based on the mantra of privacy and institutional protection, take a paternalistic approach to research participants that leaves them open to harm. Reflecting on our own research/consultancy as a case study to illustrate the current flaws, we explore our and our subjects' experiences within the wider political context of institutional ethical rules and the Australian NHMRC guidelines. In doing so we argue for fundamental changes to the modern research ethics processes-a system that treats participants more as research collaborators rather than victims in waiting. A complete review of ethics processes is needed to empower participants and researchers to recognize the reality of the process as co-created and negotiated. This includes changes at the top level of research administration-a shift in ethics policies and procedures as well as greater education in ethics with commensurate trust for active researchers.
Athlete support personnel (ASP) implement drug control policies for sport, such as antidoping. Interviews with 39 ASP reveal how differences between policy and practice play out in their "lived experience" of anti-doping. While most ASP support the ideology underlying anti-doping at a "common sense" level (using popular drug and sporting discourses such as "drugs are bad" and sporting virtue), they are critical of anti-doping practice. Combined with no direct experience with doping, ASP saw doping as a rare event unlikely to emerge in practice. Most ASP took a laissez-faire approach to anti-doping, relying on managers to know what to do in the unlikely event of a doping incident. Despite broadly supporting the ideas of anti-doping, ASP raised concerns around implementation with regards to Athlete Whereabouts and recreational drug use. In response to hypothetical doping events, a number of ASP would seek to persuade the athlete to discontinue doping rather than meet mandatory reporting obligations. Part of this extended from conflicts between professional and antidoping obligations (e.g. mandatory reporting and patient confidentiality). ASP demonstrate anti-doping policies are in tension with a practice that systematically normalises substance based performance enhancement early in sporting careers. Anti-doping agencies need to do more to engage with ASP as the "front line" of drug management in sport, including resolving contradictions across policies and in practice.Keywords: anti-doping; athlete support personnel; qualitative; Australia IntroductionDespite evidence athlete support personnel (ASP) are influential actors in the doping and anti-doping milieu, there is little evidence of how ASP understand, interpret or experience their role. The World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) (WADA, 2009) establishes a framework designed to help ASP meet their obligations to support the aims of the anti-doping ideology.National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs) develop policies designed to give effect to the WADC in local contexts. However, evidence suggests that there is a gap between anti-doping policies and the practice of anti-doping in sporting communities (cf Hanstad, Skille & Loland, 2010). In practice, evidence indicates anti-doping education policies fail to give sufficient knowledge about WADC obligations among sports physicians and coaches (e.g. Backhouse & McKenna, 2011. More broadly, an Australian survey of knowledge (awareness of rules), attitudes towards doping in sport, and ethical stance around anti-doping practice indicated ASP have a very different experience of anti-doping than might be expected under policies giving effect to the aims of the WADC (Mazanov, Backhouse, Connor, Hemphill & Quirk, 2013). This paper reports the second qualitative stage of a sequential, qualitative dominant mixed-methods project exploring ASP experience of anti-doping reported by Mazanov et al (2013) (see Section 1.2). More specifically, this qualitative interview study sought to explore and contextualise the relationship b...
Athletes differ markedly from the general population in response to the dilemma. This raises significant practical and ethical dilemmas for athlete support personnel. The psychometry of the dilemma needs to be established more comprehensively for general and athlete populations.
The COVID‐19 pandemic created a working from home experiment for the public sector. This paper examines what might happen next as countries move towards a COVID‐normal environment. Since the academic literature on public sector agencies and working from home since the onset of the pandemic is scant, we focus on the non‐peer‐reviewed literature as our evidence base. This paper identifies the main issues public sector agencies need to consider as new ways of working emerge. The key facets are emerging preferences for hybrid working, productivity and remote working, and impacts of working from home on employees, especially gender equality. We highlight a range of emerging challenges, including how to maintain productivity, the need to redevelop employee value propositions to attract and retain employees in this changing landscape, and the risks of proximity bias. We conclude by identifying questions to be addressed in subsequent research.
Loyalty between soldiers is idealized as an emotion that promotes cohesion and combat effectiveness. However, little empirical work has examined how military personnel understand, feel, and enact loyalty. We use a symbolic interactionalist informed frame to explore the lived experience of 24 retired Australian Defence Force members via in-depth semi-structured interviews. Our analysis revealed three core themes: (1) Loyalty as reciprocity, where there was an expectation that loyalty would be returned no matter what. (2) The importance of emotional connection for cohesion. (3) Loyalty as a prioritizing process, where a soldier’s loyalties gave them a way of choosing between competing demands. Loyalty is a moral emotion that enabled sensemaking. Close interpersonal loyalties tended to trump wider/diffused loyalties. Respondents understood their loyalties to fellow soldiers within wider social constructs of mateship and professionalism. The findings show the risks that come from a reliance on loyalty for combat cohesion.
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