The importance of stress in the understanding of adolescent health and well‐being is widely documented. The measurement of adolescent stress has however been subjected to sufficient methodological and conceptual criticism in recent times to warrant a concerted re‐evaluation of the exercise. This study sought information on the nature of adolescent stressors, building on a previous instrument developed by the first author to ask adolescents themselves to inform the development of a pool of new items reflecting stressor experience and to advise on the wording of these items to comprehensively assess that experience. This pool of items was then administered as a self‐reported questionnaire to a large sample of school‐age adolescents (N>1000) together with a scale to assess the intensity of distress arising from stressor occurrence. Principal components analysis of the questionnaire yielded 10 internally reliable dimensions of adolescent stress, the nature of which were consistent with the available literature on adolescent stressor experience. Scales constructed from this PCA related positively to measures of anxiety and depression, and negatively to a measure of self‐esteem, suggesting that they were valid measures of adolescent stress. Test–retest reliability was good for all scales. The resultant Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ) is therefore suggested to have potential for the measurement of adolescent stress in both research and clinical contexts.

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The present study reports an evaluation of the factor structure of the Norwegian version of the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ-N) among 723 students. Principal components analysis (PCA) revealed nine internally consistent dimensions of adolescent stress. Scales constructed from this PCA correlated positively with measures of depression and anxiety and negatively with self-esteem. Girls reported higher stress levels than boys in seven of the nine scales and age was also positively correlated with the scale scores of adolescent stress. The results revealed that the instrument has potential for measuring adolescent stress. The stability of the ASQ-N needs to be tested repeatedly, across cohorts and over time, to establish the adequacy for use in Norwegian adolescent studies.

Background: Athletes are expected to consider multiple factors when making informed decision about nutritional supplement use. Besides rules, regulations and potential health hazards, the efficacy of different nutritional supplements in performance enhancement is a key issue. The aim of this paper was to find evidence for informed decision making by investigating the relationship between specific performance-related reasons for supplement use and the reported use of nutritional supplements.

This paper reports on an empirical discrete choice model of the factors influencing a hypothetical athlete’s deliberations around using prohibited performance enhancing substances (doping) developed from a sample of 259 elite Australian athletes (76% Australian, Worlds or Olympic). Kim was constructed as a gender neutral athlete at the same level and stage of career as the respondent. The results indicate athletes felt Kim would be more at risk of considering doping if convinced by a coach or senior athlete of disproportionate immediate gains to performance with little or no consequences (e.g., low risk of prosecution). Conversely, athletes indicated Kim was felt to be less inclined to consider doping if doping would be fatal, to achieve or maintain performance, large fines ($150,000) or no financial gain. The choice model also indicates elite athletes’ projections about doping considerations were rational in character. The implications for managing the role of drugs in sport suggest antidoping could be improved with precisely timed testing, changing incentive structures within sport, concealing test accuracy and publicly humiliating athletes caught doping.

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The relationships between projected use, self-reported behavior and attitudes to performance-enhancing (PED) and recreational (RD) drugs were investigated among 82 competitive Hungarian athletes, with 14.6% admitting using PED and 31.7% using RD. Both the observed doping estimations (even those made by non-users) and self-admitted use were considerably higher than the average rate of positive doping tests (2% of all tests). The notable overestimation by PED users (34.6% vs 16.9%) was in keeping with the false consensus effect. A prediction model with attitude and projection to the likelihood of PED use suggested at least a 70% chance of self-involvement of athletes, with responses at or above the median scores (Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale ≥ 60 and estimation ≥ 50%) on the two independent measures. Users overestimated the prevalence of doping in their sport (P=0.007) but not RD use, with the converse holding for RD users' views of doping (P=0.029). PED users also showed a significantly more lenient attitude toward doping (P<0.001). This domain-specific characteristic adds new information to the ongoing research effort in understanding drug-doping co-morbidity. The reasons for elevated in-group projection are discussed, along with the potential application of this phenomenon in doping epidemiology studies.

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