TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 17 October 2022 DOI 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1018757 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Anat Gesser-Edelsburg, University of Haifa, Israel REVIEWED BY Atta Ur Rehman, Margalla Institute of Health Sciences, Pakistan Dinesh Raj Pallepogula, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), India Shubhashri Jahagirdar, Mahavir Institute of Medical Sciences, India *CORRESPONDENCE Soha Nabil Sohanabil0@gmail.com † These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to Public Health Education and Promotion, a section of the journal Frontiers in Public Health RECEIVED 13 August 2022 ACCEPTED 29 September 2022 PUBLISHED 17 October 2022 CITATION Eltewacy NK, Nabil S, Sweedy R, Marzo RR, Hamza N and The EARG Group (2022) Knowledge, practice and attitude toward anabolic hormones and nutritional supplements among people practicing sports in the MENA region before and during COVID-19 lockdown. Front. Public Health 10:1018757. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1018757 COPYRIGHT © 2022 Eltewacy, Nabil, Sweedy, Marzo, Hamza and The EARG Group. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Knowledge, practice and attitude toward anabolic hormones and nutritional supplements among people practicing sports in the MENA region before and during COVID-19 lockdown Nael Kamel Eltewacy 1† , Soha Nabil 2 * † , Rahma Sweedy 3 , Roy Rillera Marzo 4,5 , Nouran Hamza 3,6 and The EARG Group 1 Faculty of Pharmacy, Beni-Suef University, Minia, Egypt, 2 Faculty of Medicine, Beni-Suef University, Beni Suef, Egypt, 3 Medical Agency for Research and Statistics (MARS), Cairo, Egypt, 4 Department of Community Medicine, International Medical School, Management and Science University, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia, 5 Global Public Health, Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University, Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia, 6 Clinical Research Key (CRK-CRO), Nairobi, Kenya Introduction: During the COVID-19 lockdown, people’s lifestyles have changed including their habits and physical activities. There has been an increase in anabolic hormones and nutritional supplement use among people who regularly do exercise in the MENA region. This study aims to assess knowledge, practice, and attitude toward the use of anabolic hormones and nutritional supplements among people who regularly exercise in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and to compare their exercise habits and hormones and supplements usage between before and during COVID-19 lockdown. Methods: A self-administrated online Google form survey was carried out between February 2021 and April 2021. Five thousand eight hundred forty-five participants who regularly exercise and aged ≥18 years responded to the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed through social media platforms and included five sections: demographic, training characters, knowledge, practice, and attitude. Results: The participants mean age was 27.4 ± 8.6 years. Males represented 58.2 % of participants. 75.3% of the study participants had not used either hormones or supplements, and about 19% used supplements only. The mean percent score for knowledge, practice, and attitude were 39.3 ± 30.5, 1.1 ± 9.5, and 21.3 ± 23.8, respectively. Level of knowledge was higher among participants who worked in the medical field or as sports coaches. The practice was higher among male participants. The most commonly used anabolic hormones and nutritional supplements were steroids and proteins with bodybuilding being the most common purpose. Internet was the main source of information and pharmacy was the main source for procuring these Frontiers in Public Health 01 frontiersin.org