Health risk and health seeking behaviours among people who inject performance and image enhancing drugs who access needle syringe programs in Australia

Abstract

This study identified significant differences in demographic characteristics, risk and health seeking behaviour among PIED users who did and did not also use psychoactive substances. There is a need to enhance and tailor harm reduction efforts and to build the capacity of NSP staff to better meet the needs of this diverse group.

Australia's Adonis: Understanding what motivates young men's lifestyle choices for enhancing their appearance

“…All of the young men in the present study reported illicit drug use, typically in conjunction with PIED use. This pattern is concerning as illicit drug use combined with PIED use could be more harmful (Baker et al, ; Pope, Kanayama, & Hudson, ; Van de Ven et al, ), particularly among individuals with high levels of muscle mass and low levels of body fat engaging in a strict weekly weight training and diet regime.…”

“…This age range has been shown to be the age where motives for muscular-building behaviours is highest (Boyda & Shevlin, 2011;Martin & Govender, 2011). The initiation of steroid use is generally younger than 30 years (Sagoe et al, 2014), with investigations highlighting the rising use in young men (Copeland, Peters, & Dillon, 2000;Dunn, McKay, & Iversen, 2014;Dunn & White, 2011;Jacka et al, 2017;Van de Ven et al, 2018). Growing rates of PIED use among young men (Dunn & White, 2011) have been observed in the Australian context and linked with a high drive for muscularity (Parent & Moradi, 2011).…”

The modes of administration of anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) users: are non-injecting people who use steroids overlooked?

“…requires less planning in sourcing equipment) and to explore the barriers to accessing healthcare services for this specific group. Furthermore, although bloodborne viruses (BBVs), such as HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, are an issue of concern among this population (Hope et al, 2013;van de Ven et al, 2018), AAS users tend to have lower levels of BBVs compared to other psychoactive drug users. Adding to this, levels of sharing or reuse of injecting equipment, which is a significant risk factor for BBV transmission, is much lower amongst user amongst this population when compared to those injecting psychoactive drugs (Larance, Degenhardt, Copeland, & Dillon, 2008).…”

“…Data on AAS use is generally collected via ethnographic work (Christiansen, Vinther, & Liokaftos, 2017;Underwood, 2017;van de Ven & Mulrooney, 2017) and surveys Zahnow et al, 2018) within needle and syringe programs (NSPs) or gym/bodybuilding settings. Even with the limited diversity in recruitment samples, variation in motivations for use and associated health risk behaviours have been identified (van de Ven et al, 2018;Zahnow et al, 2018). For example, the use of steroids by older men may be motivated by anti-ageing aims (Begley et al, 2017;Evans Brown, McVeigh, Perkins, & Bellis, 2012), while police personnel may use AAS for recovery and/or strength purposes (Hoberman, 2005;Hoberman, 2017).…”

The emergence of Exercise Addiction, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and other image-related psychopathological correlates in fitness settings: A cross sectional study

“…This market is poorly regulated [52, 53, 54] with an estimation that between 26% and 42% of these products have been contaminated with biologically-active ingredients. Consequently those purchasing these products are unware of the numerous health risks associated with their consumption [55, 56, 57, 58].…”