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

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.