Abstract

CARREGOSA, Monique Santos  and  FARO, André. The meaning of the steroids anabolics for teenagers. Temas psicol. [online]. 2016, vol.24, n.2, pp. 519-532. ISSN 1413-389X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.9788/TP2016.2-07.

This study investigated the concept of anabolic steroids and identified benefits and harms of using according to adolescents. There were 508 high school students from two public schools, with 16.2 years on average. We used a semi-open questionnaire addressing the concept, the benefits and harms derived from steroids. The corpus was unique and the answers were analyzed with the software IRAMUTEQ, by Hierarchical Classification Descending (CHD). The results indicated three main classes: (1) Concepts of steroids, (2) Benefits derived from steroids, and (3) Losses derived from steroids. The first indicated three main concepts of steroids: (a) "something that increases muscle mass"; (b) "improves performance at the gym"; and (c) "paradox: good and bad." The class of benefits showed that adolescents do not highlight only gains, but also the costs, despite the advantages being overlapping. The third class indicated that there is some knowledge about the harms of anabolic steroids, but may create hazards and lead to an underestimation of the side effects of using. Therefore, adolescents referred the concern of his group regarding physical appearance and they present a discourse about steroids focused on health, either through a false healthy appearance or emphasize the damages.

Keywords : Steroids anabolics; meaning; teenagers; body.

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