UpStart Parent Survey-Prenatal: A New Tool for Evaluating Prenatal Education Programs.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate a new prenatal education program evaluation tool, the UpStart Parent Survey - Prenatal, in terms of: (a) reliability and validity; (b) sensitivity to change over time; (c) whether results differed for mothers versus fathers; and (d) whether results differed when using an electronic tablet-computer versus a paper survey.

DESIGN AND SAMPLE: Psychometric study. Participants were 277 expectant mothers (n = 161) and fathers (n = 106) enrolled in Childbirth Essentials, a 6-week prenatal education program.

MEASURES: The UpStart Parent Survey - Prenatal is a retrospective pretest/posttest survey with three scales: Parenting Knowledge, Parenting Experience, and Program Satisfaction, and three open-ended questions.

RESULTS: The UpStart Parent Survey - Prenatal is sensitive to change and demonstrated significant positive differences in parenting knowledge and parenting experience. There was no difference in results whether the survey was completed by mothers or fathers. Results were similar whether paper or electronic formats were used. The survey was easy to complete.

CONCLUSION: The UpStart Parent Survey - Prenatal holds promise as a reliable and valid evaluation tool to capture outcomes of brief prenatal education programs that target the general population of expectant parents.