Psychometric Properties of the Performance Enhancement Attitude Scale (PEAS) for Brazilian Sports

TL;DR

This paper validates a new scale to assess attitudes toward performance-enhancing drugs among Brazilian athletes.

Contribution

The study introduces and validates the Brazilian version of the PEAS, a tool for measuring doping attitudes in sports.

Findings

The PEAS showed strong content validity (CVC > 0.80) and good internal structure (RMSEA = 0.032, CFI = 0.96).

Reliability was confirmed with Cronbach’s α, McDonald’s ω, and CR values all above 0.70.

Network analysis supported the PEAS’s internal structure and reliability for use in Brazilian sports.

Abstract

Interest in psychosocial predictors of doping has been increasing as a way of finding new approaches to reduce the use of performance-enhancing drugs. This investigation aimed to test the psychometric properties of an instrument to assess doping attitudes in Brazilian athletes. The PEAS was validated in Brazilian sports through a process of translation, back-translation and content validity assessment, presenting satisfactory evidence based on its content (CVC > 0.80). Then, 994 athletes from different sexes, types of sports and competitive levels answered the Brazilian version of the PEAS. The results showed satisfactory evidence of validity based on its response process, internal structure (X2/df = 2.04; RMSEA = 0.032 (0.026–0.038); CFI = 0.96; TLI = 0.95) and reliability (Cronbach’s α, McDonald’s ω and CR > 0.70). Network analysis was also used to further explore the PEAS’s internal structure. Overall, the results provide support for the adoption of the PEAS for Brazilian athletes and possibly other Portuguese-speaking countries.

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