Assessing the choice of sources of information on sexual and reproductive health issues among adolescents

Background: Access to the right information from credible sources on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) issues is germane to smooth and healthy transition from childhood to adulthood among adolescents with or without disabilities. Despite the large amount of research focused on adolescents aged 15-19 years, adolescents with disabilities, particularly those with visual impairment have received little attention. This study aims to assess the sources of information on SRH issues among adolescents with visually impairment (AVI) and adolescents without visual impairments (AWVI). Methods: A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 394 AVI and AWVI in-school adolescents aged 15-19 years from two government boarding schools in Owo local government area of Ondo state, Nigeria. Quantitative Data were collected using the Open Data Kit (ODK). Data analyses were done using descriptive and Binary Logistics regression. Results: The available sources  of information on SRH issues among in-school adolescents include school teachers, parents, siblings and other family members among others. Of all the available sources of information, the most important and the most preferred sources of information were school teachers, parents, siblings and other family members. However, the AVI preferred to receive more information on puberty and Sexual and Reproductive (SR) system from their most important sources (school teachers and parents); while the AWVI preferred getting more information on puberty from parents and more information on SR system from school teachers. While most of the AVI preferred to receive more information on boy/girlfriend relationship from school teachers and parents, majority of the AWVI preferred to receive more of such information from their parents. Significant difference exists only in the most preferred source of information on boy/girlfriend relationship between the AVI and AWVI (p<0.05). Furthermore, results from the binary Logistics regression showed that,  AWVI were significantly less likely to have received information on SRH issues from their preferred sources than their AVI counterparts (OR:0.460; CI:0.273-0.777). Female adolescents were significantly more likely to have received information from their preferred sources than their male counterparts (OR:1.592; CI:1.016-2.496). Also, adolescents having mothers aged 40-49 were more than twice as likely as those whose mothers were younger to have received information from their preferred sources (OR:2.220; CI:1.150-4.286). Conclusion: Making information on SRH issues available and accessible to adolescents generally and those with visual impairment in particular in formats that take their disabilities into account, will go a long way to ensuring their smooth and healthy transition to adulthood. The data was collected using Open Data Kit (ODK) among in-school adolescents, aged 15-19. Data were colected from two schools - school for students with visual impairment and school for students without visual impairment.  Data cleaning has been done, but the data has not been altered from the original form Although the manuscript developed from the dataset made use of information for adolescents aged 15-19, the data contains information for adolescents (especially for those with visual impairment) above age 19. The data is not from a clinical trial, but from interviews from in-school adolescents in government boarding schools in a state in Nigeria