Prenatal education for the Spanish speaking: an evaluation

Abstract

A Spanish-language prenatal health-education program of classes in four topic areas was conducted for randomly selected pregnant women. The topics included newborn care, labor and delivery, family planning, and dental health care. A questionnaire was administered to the participants after they had attended all four sessions and at the end of their 36th week of gestation. A matched group of control women received the same questions soon after entering the program and before attending any classes. Women attending the health-education classes demonstrated significantly greater knowledge of the subjects covered than did those not taking the classes. Insights gained from the study suggest potential approaches for working with such a population with respect to cultural considerations, evaluation question construction, and question selection.