Jacob S Ghahremani, Jenna E Ogi, Michael T Kody, Ronald A Navarro
Readability of Online Patient Education Materials for Shoulder Instability Surgery in English and Spanish
Journal of shoulder and elbow surgery
anabolic androgenic steroids aas disproportionately used sexual minority men physical mental health implications aas use incompletely understood understand reasons use health care needs gay bisexual queer cisgender men using aas qualitative study conducted november 2021 may 2023 using selfadministered questionnaires semistructured interviews transcribed coded using reflexive thematic analysis participants recruited convenience snowball sampling lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer clinical centers new york new york well online platforms patients selfidentified cisgender gay bisexual queer history nonprescribed aas use minimum 8 consecutive weeks required primary outcomes reasons health implications aas use interactions health care practitioners determined interviews interview transcripts collected analyzed thematic saturation reached interviews 12 male participants mean sd age 44 11 years majority participants identifying gay 10 participants 83 white nonhispanic 9 participants 75 30s 40s 9 participants 75 holding bachelors degree higher 11 participants 92 used steroids mean sd 75 71 years one participant 8 selfidentified black 2 17 identified hispanic seven men 58 met criteria muscle dysmorphia screening nine overarching themes found including internal external motivators initial use continued use effectiveness fear losses intensive personal research physical emotional harms experienced use using communitybased harm reduction techniques frustration interactions medical community focused aas cessation concerns around illegality aas qualitative study aas use among cisgender gay bisexual queer men found associated multifactorial motivators including likely aas use disorder muscle dysmorphia despite participants experiencing harms use men seeking medical help found insufficient support practitioners insistent aas cessation thus developed harm reduction techniques research needed assess utility practitioner education efforts safety efficacy communitydeveloped harm reduction methods impact aas decriminalization health care outcomes patient population