Background: Reproductive health awareness of unmarried boys and girls is vital for their growth and development for their future parenthood. Little is known about their knowledge, attitude, and advice seeking behaviour of adolescents and youths for reproductive health matters. Objectives: to investigate reproductive and sexual awareness of adolescents and youths and to explore their opinions regarding advice seeking for reproductive health needs. Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted among unmarried students studying in schools/colleges in four Government and Private schools/Colleges of Chandigarh. A stratified two-stage random sampling design was adopted. Data variables included background information reproductive and sexual health reproductive behavior and needs. Results: A total of 297 adolescents and youths including 176 (59.3%) males and 121(40.7%) females were included and 58(19.5%) respondents including 41(23.3%) boys and 17(14.0%) girls reported having intimate friends. There were 167(56.2%) including 95 (54.0%) boys and only 72 (59.5%) girls respondents of the opinion that teenage pregnancy was very risky and 23(7.7%) adolescents had sexual encounters. Only 12.5% participants including 15.3% boys and 8.3% girls reported pre-marital sex to be wrong. The most common known contraceptive was condom reported by 122(50.2%) followed by oral contraceptive 99(40.7%) participants. There were 84(28.3%) respondents who were aware of sexting. According to 241(81.1%) respondents, sex education was necessary and 106(44.0%) respondents preferred schools as the best place for sex education. Conclusions: Adolescents and youths had several reproductive and sexual health issues and misconceptions. Adolescent Health Programs should be extended beyond health institutions. They should be provided age appropriate family life education (FLE).
