BMC Public Health 2007, 7:354 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/7/354 40 35 30 eg25 a ten20 c re15 P 10 5 0 In-School Out of school Privacy finformtion arietyo V fuse falternatves elevantinformation nrestrictedaccess Easeo Lacko U R FWighuyrdeo1you prefer the Internet? Why do you prefer the Internet? living statuses are other reported having used the Internet for information during the specified periods. On the other hand, those out-of-school youth whose par- ents are public servants (33.10%) and have university education (33.19%) have used the Internet more than those whose parents are self employed (46.12%), employed by the private sector (20.78%) and those whose parents have secondary (28.19%) or college of education, (8.11%), primary (15.21%) and none (15.31%). There is no significant relationship between frequency of use of the Internet and availability of home appliances, although the probability appears higher for those who have com- puters at home (p = 0.051) than those who do not have (p = 0.031). Those out-of-school adolescents who are living with their parents (12.56%) are less likely than those who reported living in boarding houses (27.13%), other hostel respondents (28.91%) and those who did not specify their accommodation types (31.41%) to use the Internet for reproductive health information. Unlike the in-school adolescents, there is a significant difference between the use of Internet for information purposes with type of access, with the adolescents who have home access (23.12%) being less likely than those without home access. A further significant difference exists with ever using the Internet, with an indication that, those who reported having ever used the Internet (87.13%) being by more users of the Internet for reproductive health than those who reported having never used the Internet. Simi- larly, owning an email account is significantly related to using the Internet for reproductive health information seeking purpose, with those reporting that they own email account also reporting using the Internet for reproductive health information seeking. Cybercafes are the most patronized Internet service loca- tion for most of the out-of-school adolescents as 95.23% of them reported that they have used such location; the rest have used home facility (2.19%), school facility (0.2%), and 44.15% and 15.23% have used Internet in friends and other family members homes respectively. There is no significant association between age, availabil- ity of home appliances and the Internet location of choice. But youth whose parents are public servants (54.34%) dif- fer from those whose parents are private sector employees (23.15%) or self-employed (12.51%) in their choice of Internet location. Furthermore, children of parents with tertiary education (15.18%) are less likely to choosy of Internet location, than those whose parents have second- ary school education (24.15%), primary (34.12%) or none (22.55%). An examination of this response pattern showed that privacy, ease of access, unrestricted access and lack of alternative sources determined the choice of location. What are the common reproductive health information sources used by the out-of-school adolescents? The out-of- school adolescents reported relying on friends (63.18%) the most for reproductive health information followed by the Internet and boyfriend/girlfriend each of which was reportedly used by over 50% of the respondents. Books, television and magazines were used by over 40%, while public health campaigns and health classes constituted sources of information to more than 30% of the respond- ents. Grandparents, parents, health provider/clinic, teach- ers and clergy/religious leaders were only reportedly used by more than 20% of the girls while sibling/cousin were the least consulted sources (Table 3). No significant rela- tionship was found between the variables and personal variables of age, and, availability of household appli- ances. But significant differences were found with repro- ductive health information-related information sources except, surprisingly, clergy/religious leader, grandparents/ relatives and sibling/cousin. Unlike their in-school counterpart, there is a significant relationship between age, parents' occupation and living status. Adolescents at ages 18 and 19 are most likely (67.14%) to use the Internet for reproductive health infor- mation purposes than those who are less than 18 years. Those whose parents have tertiary education (45.18%) and who are living in other hostel accommodation (44.23%) are more likely than those whose parents have secondary education (21.11%) or primary education (33.79%) and who live in undisclosed hostel types (12.10%) or school hostel (2.10%) to use the Internet for health information purposes. Type of access also differed with the use of Internet by the out-of-school youths. Access to the Internet at the cyber- Page 7 of 13 (page number not for citation purposes)