Implementation and assessment of a teen focused prenatal education seminar

Abstract

Teen pregnancy is an increasingly common occurrence in the United States with approximately 34.3 birth per 1,000 teens aged 15 to 19 in 2010 ("Montana teen birth," 2012). Many teens do not seek prenatal education for a variety of reasons including cost, lack of transportation or time and fear of judgment from others. A teen focused prenatal education program may be helpful in increasing knowledge regarding pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. In this project, a teen focused prenatal education seminar was designed and presented to a group of pregnant teens. A pretest/posttest format was used to assess the understanding and retention of the information presented. A course satisfaction survey was administered with the posttest to assess the teens overall satisfaction with the course. The results of the pretest and posttest showed a statistically significant increase in knowledge on the posttest when compared to the pretest. The course satisfaction survey indicated that overall, teens were quite satisfied with the course, felt comfortable in the setting and would recommend it to their friends. The results of this study suggests that this teen focused prenatal education seminar helped to increase teens' knowledge of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting and that teens were satisfied with this type prenatal education.