Table 1 Descriptive statistics of weighted sample by linguistic group of a population-based cross-sectional survey in Italy, August to September 2014

Age (years)

M (SD)

47.9 (18.7)

51.1 (18.6)

48.9 (18.7)

Sex

n (%)

 Male

168 (49.1)

70 (49.6)

238 (49.3)

 Female

174 (50.9)

71 (50.4)

245 (50.7)

Educational Level

n (%)

 less than high school

210 (61.2)

61 (43.3)

271 (56.0)

 high school + 

133 (38.8)

80 (56.7)

213 (44.0)

Region

n (%)

 urban

80 (23.3)

115 (81.6)

195 (40.3)

 rural

263 (76.7)

26 (18.4)

289 (59.7)

Source of Information

Beeing asked for advice

n (%)

 never/rarely

166 (48.5)

66 (46.8)

232 (48.0)

 sometimes/often

176 (51.5)

75 (53.2)

251 (52.0)

Newspaper/Magazines

n (%)

 never/rarely

105 (30.7)

44 (31.2)

149 (30.8)

 sometimes/often

237 (69.3)

97 (68.8)

334 (69.2)

TV/Radio

n (%)

 never/rarely

107 (31.2)

63 (44.7)

170 (35.1)

 sometimes/often

236 (68.8)

78 (55.3)

314 (64.9)

Friends

n (%)

 never/rarely

99 (28.9)

57 (40.1)

156 (32.2)

 sometimes/often

244 (71.1)

85 (59.9)

329 (67.8)

Professionals

n (%)

 never/rarely

181 (52.9)

59 (42.8)

240 (50.0)

 sometimes/often

161 (47.1)

79 (57.2)

240 (50.0)

Courses

n (%)

 never/rarely

272 (79.3)

119 (83.8)

391 (80.6)

 sometimes/often

71 (20.7)

23 (16.2)

94 (19.4)

Medical Literature

n (%)

 never/rarely

227 (66.2)

102 (72.3)

329 (68.0)

 sometimes/often

116 (33.8)

39 (27.7)

155 (32.0)

Random Online Search

n (%)

 never/rarely

194 (56.6)

68 (47.9)

262 (54.0)

 sometimes/often

149 (43.4)

74 (52.1)

223 (46.0)

Targeted Online Search

n (%)

 never/rarely

198 (57.7)

87 (61.7)

285 (58.9)

 sometimes/often

145 (42.3)

54 (38.3)

199 (41.1)

Online Forums

n (%)

 never/rarely

327 (95.6)

131 (92.9)

458 (94.8)

 sometimes/often

15 (4.4)

10 (7.1)

25 (5.2)