BMC Public Health 2007, 7:354 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/354 and contraception, and younger adolescents are embar- rassed, afraid, or uncomfortable discussing certain health issues (e.g., menstruation, pregnancy) than were their older peers in grades 10 through 12 [15]. Considering the attributes of cheapness, availability, ease of use and confidentiality of online resources, adolescent information needs may better be served by the Internet, which allows them to explore sensitive topics online which they may not want to reveal to parents, physicians, school officials, or acquaintances [21]. Web resources such as web pages, bulletin boards, newsgroups, listservs, and chatrooms found on the Internet contain health information and provide access to information for a potentially large number of participants worldwide [22]. About one third (36.5 million) of Nigeria's total popula- tion of over 123 million are youth between the ages of 10 and 24. It is estimated that by 2025, the number of Nige- rian youth will exceed 57 million. Lack of reproductive health information and services place these young people at risk of pregnancy, abortion, sexually transmitted infec- tions (STI), and HIV/AIDS. In all communities, girls are more vulnerable to reproductive health problems than boys for both biological and social reasons, as well as for cultural and patriarchal factors, and they often have poor access to information about their reproductive health. Although youth in Nigeria generally face health chal- lenges, the adolescent girls face serious challenges, rang- ing from early exposure to intercourse to pregnancy, with severe consequences of abortion and death, and poor development of self-efficacy [23]. Despite harsh political and economic situation in Nigeria, the country is rapidly evolving as an information society and an information technology hub in West Africa. Internet services are avail- able in cybercafes, in-schools and in many homes, and could be serving the purpose of informing the girl child about her reproductive health. However, there is need to understand the extent to which this infrastructure serves this purpose. Methods Study area, sampling and procedures This survey took place in Owerri, an ancient city in eastern Nigeria, which is also the capital city of Imo State. Owerri covers a wide geographical area, a factor that combines with the high cost of attempting to reach every adolescent girl and the need to be time-conscious to necessitate the adoption of a sample survey design, already described in [24]. The study is concerned with two groups of respond- ents, namely the in-school, referring to adolescent girls who are currently in-school, and, out-of-school adoles- cents – adolescents who dropped out-of-school without completing their secondary education. This paper is restricted to adolescent girls being an excerpt from a larger research report with same focus, conducted with funding support from MacArthur Foundation in 2005 [24]. To survey the in-school adolescent girls, the principals of ten of the 22 secondary schools spread in the nine local government areas that constitute Owerri senatorial zone were approached through community champions, and their cooperation in collecting data from the students was solicited. Following from this, attendance rosters from each of the school authorities were collected, and 120 adolescent girls whose ages were 19 and below were ran- domly selected to participate in the study. The respond- ents completed the questionnaire in their schools with the assistance of trained interviewers. For the out-of-school sample, the community champions were relied upon to recruit adolescent girls, and 134 gave their consent. The instrument was administered to the girls in their homes. Altogether, the sample size was 1334. A major limitation of the study is the incomparability of the proportions of in-school and out-of-school samples, a factor that might reduce the significance of the comparison. However, con- sidering the difficulty of tracking the out-of-school youth, the data used here gives sufficient indication of the situa- tion. To ensure that the study met ethical expectation, details of the objectives, rationale and methodology of the study were disclosed to the respondents after their verbal consent was obtained. Furthermore, anonymity of the respondents was ensured by requesting them not to write their names on the questionnaires. The instrument and measures The instrument used in this study was a modified version of an earlier questionnaire used in a research carried out on U.S. adolescents on the same subject matter [25,26]. To ensure that the instrument suited the problem defined, staff of the Africa Regional Centre for Information Science of the University of Ibadan reviewed the instrument for validity. The reproductive health information content of the instrument was reviewed by a biostatistician who was also the mentor appointed by the funder of the larger project. The major difference between this instrument and that used in the US study is the adjustment of the instru- ment for cultural appropriateness. The question on eth- nicity was removed entirely because it was assumed that the non-Igbo population in the sample would be negligi- ble since the study took place in an Igbo enclave. With respect to socio-economic status, car, telephone, and refrigerators, which are household appliances that are sig- nificant indicators of both enlightenment and affluence, were included. Then a one-time-only 16-page anonymous questionnaire consisting of 65 closed-ended questions was administered on each of the respondents. A pre-test showed that each of the instruments took approximately 35 minutes to complete. Data on the characteristics of the respondents, as well as a brief assessment of the adoles- Page 3 of 13 (page number not for citation purposes)