AccScience Publishing / HPR / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/HPR026310184
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Doping-related attitudes and intentions among Croatian athletes: Examining theory of planned behavior constructs and broader psychosocial correlates

Pero Kuterovac1 ,  Andriana Benčić Kužnar2* ,  Renata Barić3
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1 Independent researcher, Zagreb , Croatia
2 Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb , Croatia
3 Institute for Kinesiological Anthropology and Methodology, Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb , Croatia
HPR, 026310184 https://doi.org/10.36922/HPR026310184
Received: 29 July 2026 | Revised: 11 September 2026 | Accepted: 15 September 2026 | Published online: 24 September 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Bacckground: Doping continues to pose persistent challenges in competitive sport. Although prior studies have investigated Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) constructs together with a range of psychosocial correlates of doping, evidence from large and heterogeneous athlete samples remains limited.
Objective: This study provides a large-sample contextual replication and extension of previous TPB-based doping research by examining associations among TPB constructs, performance-enhancement attitudes, self-esteem, achievement goal orientation, sport motivation, descriptive norms, and self-reported use of prohibited substances for performance enhancement in 988 Croatian athletes from team and individual sports.
Methods: Analyses included psychometric evaluation, descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, group comparisons, and hierarchical multiple regression.
Results: Overall, 7.6% of participants reported prohibited substance use at least once during their sporting careers. Male athletes reported more favorable doping-related and performance-enhancement attitudes and stronger behavioral intentions. Individual-sport athletes and athletes in the lower competition-level group more frequently reported lifetime prohibited-substance use. Higher self-esteem, stronger task orientation, and greater intrinsic motivation were associated with less favorable doping-related and performance-enhancement attitudes and weaker behavioral intentions, whereas lower self-esteem, ego orientation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation were associated with more permissive attitudes and stronger behavioral intentions. Attitudes toward doping showed the strongest unique association with behavioral intention, followed by performance-enhancement attitudes and subjective norms. The findings replicate previously established associations between TPB constructs and doping intention while extending the evidence base by demonstrating systematic associations with a broader set of psychosocial characteristics in a large sample of Croatian athletes.
Conclusion: These findings provide context-specific evidence that may inform future longitudinal research and the development of psychosocially informed anti-doping interventions.

Keywords
Doping
Theory of planned behavior
Behavioral intention
Psychosocial correlates
Croatia
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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