How Sports Health Professionals Perceive and Prescribe Nutritional Supplements to Olympic and Non-Olympic Athletes

Floris C. Wardenaar () and Daan Hoogervorst
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Floris C. Wardenaar: College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, 425 N. 5th Street, Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA
Daan Hoogervorst: Independent Researcher, 2215 ZC Voorhout, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-14

Abstract: Background: A wide range of sports health professionals provide nutritional supplement advice. We aimed to better understand the expertise, knowledge, and attitudes of sports health professionals toward nutritional supplements and third-party supplement testing. Methods: A web-based questionnaire was used to ask questions about nutritional supplement knowledge and attitudes toward the Dutch third-party supplement testing system (NZVT), about supplement efficacy, and if professionals advise these supplements, as well as which profession can be deemed the expert on nutritional supplements. Results: A total of n = 320 sports health professionals delivered input, of which 45% worked with Olympic athletes and 18% were sports dietitians. Sports dietitians were ranked as the most knowledgeable professionals about sports nutrition (80%) and nutritional supplements (74%), and a literature-based comparison showed the most favorable knowledge, attitudes, and ergogenic classifications of supplement scores for sports dietitians compared with other sports health professions. Sports health professionals working with Olympic athletes scored similar but slightly lower trends on self-reported knowledge, attitude and third-party supplement testing than sports dietitians but substantially better than professionals not working with Olympic athletes. Conclusion: Sports dietitians are seen as the absolute expert on supplements by other sports health professionals, with professionals working with Olympic athletes reporting similar trends, and other sports health professionals do have lower self-reported knowledge and preferred attitudes toward effective and safe use of dietary supplements.

Keywords: nutritional supplements; dietary supplements; anti-doping; contamination; sports nutrition; third-party testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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