BMC Public Health 2007, 7:354 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/354 Table 3: Reproductive health information sources used by the adolescents Total (%) In-school (%) Out-of-school (%) Chi square statistics in-school vs. out-of-school 55.24 66.22 55.35 55.77 51.98 56.15 19.12 25.12 49.11 19.13 13.00 11.99 21.81 41.77 25.44 26.13 46.16 35.18 35.11 24.15 41.08 55.19* 63.18* 41.08 21.00 29.10 19.08 52.51 6.60** 22.10** 7.12** 5.80** 5.12** 8.78** 45.10** 10.08** 45.89** 44.09** ns ns 34.12** Ns Sources Health provider/clinic Parents Books Public health campaigns Health class Teachers Television Internet Friends Magazines Clergy/religious leader Grandparents/relatives Siblings/cousin Boyfriend or girlfriend 54.14 56.11 45.56 45.78 50.51 44.15 39.18 45.19 53.18 39.18 19.10 19.19 19.89 43.91 alcohol use, cancer, contraception, dating, violence or rape, diet/nutrition, drug use, fitness or exercise, heart dis- ease, illness support groups, and medicines/pharmaceuti- cals. Others are mental health, parenting, physical abuse, pregnancy, puberty/development, sexual abuse, sexual activities, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV/AIDS. A crucial issue that has high reproductive health conse- quence among the youth namely pornography was excluded from this list because such sensitive information might not be gauged from the youth by a questionnaire. Table 4 shows the result on the top eight topics, indicating that that HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases attracted the in-school girls to the Internet the most, fol- lowed by sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. To the extent that the result so far has shown that Internet could be considered a source of information about ado- lescent reproductive health, it becomes very necessary to understand why the adolescents would prefer using the Internet instead of other sources. Figure 1 shows that the in-school adolescents use the Internet for seeking reproductive health information Health topics Sexually transmitted diseases HIV/AIDS Diet/nutrition Fitness or exercise Sexual activities Pregnancy Drug abuse Sexual abuse 35.17 45.16 14.11 21.10 36.98 32.30 12.10 11.10 34.12 48.19 25.39 11.11 18.19 23.19 19.89 29.29 Table 4: Proportion of in-school and out-of-school adolescents accessing selected health topics Total Internet users (%) In-school Internet users (%) Out-of-school Internet users (%) Chi square statistic because of its privacy, relevance of information freedom of access followed by lack of alternatives, variety of infor- mation and ease of use. Let us now turn to the out of school adolescents. The out-of-school adolescents More than 68% of the out-of-school youth have ever used the Internet, with 5.6% having home access and about 57% reporting owning email accounts. Of all those who have ever used the Internet, 2.12% have sought for infor- mation from the Internet in the last one month, 45.12% have used the Internet 1–5 days in the last one month. Sig- nificant differences exist between frequency of use of the Internet by the out-of-school category and age, living sta- tus, educational status of parents as well as the occupation of parents. Over 23% of the out-of-school girl youth aged 15, 45.13% of those aged 18 and 37.71% of those aged 19-these age groups also constituted the largest propor- tion of respondents in the study (Table 1) – reported using the Internet for seeking information. Also, 34.32% of those living with their parents, 32.15% of those who reported living in boarding houses, 12.16% of those liv- ing in other types of hostel and 11.33% of those whose 54.22 38.10 15.19 21.16 38.09 33.11 9.08 9.20 14.19** ns ns ns 34.12** 23.18** ns ns Page 6 of 13 (page number not for citation purposes)