2018 National EFNEP Coordinators' Conference

EFNEP programs have reported anecdotal evidence of participants' improvements in self-esteem, moral direction, and sense of community belonging as a result of EFNEP participation. Research is needed to substantiate these findings and provide a valid method to quantify effects of EFNEP programming on Quality of Life (QoL). NC2169 conducted pilot studies using University of Toronto's QoL assessment tool. Educators and participants ranked importance and satisfaction of nine areas of life (physical, psychological, spiritual, social, community, practical, leisure, growth) in three domains (becoming, being, belonging) at three time points. From baseline to time 2, educators experienced significant increases in QoL score in all 3 domains, while participants experienced significant increases across the being domain (p<0.05). Results of subsequent qualitative studies with educators (phone interviews) and participants (focus groups) confirmed the longitudinal study's positive findings, further distinguishing that QoL impacts for educators and participants occurred in different domains. Utilizing this pilot study data, NC2169 is developing a quantitative QoL assessment tool for use as a stand-alone outcome assessment to quantify EFNEP participants' QoL outcomes or in conjunction with other measures to predict sustained behavior change allowing for the differentiation of the impact of program delivery and dose, and to inform future programming.