Qualitative study of effective biomedical factors in tendency of retired elite wrestlers to drug abuse; A grounded theory study

Introduction: Retirement is one of the difficult events. Athletes should adapt to the difficult experiences and heighten a sense of worth. Drug abuse as a negative coping behavior is a painful reaction to retirement. The aim is to identify the factors influencing the tendency of retired elite wrestlers to drug abuse. With a biomedical approach, this phenomenon was investigated. Materials and Methods: Using the method of contextual theory and semi-structured in-depth qualitative interview technique, factors influencing the tendency of retired elite wrestlers to drug abuse were studied. The data analysis method was coding, done in three stages of open, selective and axial coding. The data are in a paradigm model. Results: Factors such as sexual needs, strenuous exercise and injury were taken as causal conditions; physical pain was taken as a mediating condition; and retirement age and first experience of drug abuse were taken as an intervening condition and physiological need and doping as contextual conditions. These factors created a paradigm model. Athletes strategies for drug abuse are: leisure purposes, wider variety of drugs, continuity of drug use and finally compulsive drug use. Conclusion: The consequences of drug abuse were initially pleasant and positive, but with continued drug use, it had harmful consequences physically, psychologically and socially.