O-141 Evaluating Prenatal Education Programs: A New Measure And Outcomes

Abstract

There is limited evidence of the effectiveness of prenatal education programs, due to the lack of reliable and valid measurement evaluation tools. The UpStart Parent Survey – Prenatal Version was developed as a brief retrospective-pretest/posttest evaluation tool designed to be administered electronically or on paper. The objectives of this study were to (1) conduct preliminary psychometric analysis of the UpStart Parent Survey – Prenatal Version, (2) determine outcomes of a prenatal education program, and (3) examine differences in scores between data collection methods, and mothers versus fathers. We recruited 277 expectant parents registered in a 6-week prenatal education program. Parents completed the survey at the end of the program using electronic tablets or paper copies. We uploaded electronic data to FluidSurveys, and imported into SPSS; data from paper copies were entered manually. Both the paper and electronic versions of the survey took a similar amount of time to enter/download, clean and analyse. Parents had mixed preference for electronic or paper versions of the survey, indicating provision of both options as desirable. The UpStart Parent Survey - Prenatal Version is internally consistent with Cronbach’s alphas of >0.89 for each scale. Parents demonstrated significantly increased knowledge and parenting experiences, ps <0.001; satisfaction with the program was high. There were no significant differences in pre- or post-test scores for knowledge or experience scales whether paper or electronic surveys were used, or mothers or fathers completed the survey. The UpStart Parent Survey – Prenatal Version shows promise as a tool to capture outcomes of prenatal education programs.