A META-EVALUATION OF SMOKING CESSATION INTERVENTION RESEARCH AMONG PREGNANT-WOMEN - IMPROVING THE SCIENCE AND ART

In 1986 Windsor and Orleans described guidelines and standards to eval uate the quality of smoking cessation intervention research among preg nant women, This paper presents a meta-evaluation (ME) of the evaluati on research in this area from 1986 to 1998, ME is defined as a systema tic review of experimental and quasiexperimental evaluation research u sing a standardized set of methodological criteria to rate the interna l validity-efficacy or effectiveness-of intervention results. Five cri teria were used to rate 23 smoking cessation intervention studies amon g pregnant smokers in prenatal care: (1) evaluation research design, ( 2) sample representativeness, sample size and power estimation, (3) po pulation characteristics, (4) measurement quality, and (5) replicabili ty of interventions. Eleven studies had sufficient methodological qual ity to produce results of high internal validity. Poor measurement of smoking status, patient selection biases and incorrect calculation of quit rates were the major methodological weakness. Recommendations for future evaluation research are made.