Evaluation of the effectiveness of a community-based prenatal health education program

Abstract

This study demonstrated the importance of outlining evaluation criteria for newly implemented programs. An educational program should have measurable program objectives with which the goals of the program can be evaluated. Along with a clearly defined set of program objectives, new educational programs should be implemented with the appropriate record keeping systems to facilitate information retrieval. With a measurable set of objectives and accurate data collection, ongoing evaluation of programs would enable developers to identify the programs' strengths and weaknesses as a basis for revisions to best meet the needs of the population served.

PIP: This evaluates the effectiveness of an ongoing prenatal education program in improving the outcomes of pregnancy in a specific US urban sample population. 4 hypotheses were tested. 1) Offspring of women who have attended the prenatal education classes will have lower hospitalization costs than the offspring of women who have not attended the classes. 2) Women who have attended the prenatal education classes will have lower prenatal hospitilization costs than women who have nt attended the classes. 3) Women who have attended the prenatal education classes will show less obstetric complications than women who have not attended the classes. 4) Offspring of the women who have attended the prenatal education classes will show fewer postnatal complications than offspring of women who did not attend the classes. The setting used over a mobile van which circulated 4 days a week among 8 public housing sites on a regular schedule. Women who attended this community-based prenatal education program did not show lower inpatient hospitalization charges or lower obstetric complication scores than a similar group of women who had not attended the education classes. Likewise, the offspring of the women who attended the prenatal education classes did not fair any better in terms of inpatient hospitalization charges and postnatal complication scores than did their cohorts whose mothers had not attended the prenatal education classes. However, the data did reveal characteristics of the sample women that may have implications for future evaluation: age characteristics, number of weeks gestation at which prenatal care was begun, financial impact.