<![CDATA[Background: Maternal health remains a major public health priority. Maternal health literacy is essential for recognizing pregnancy danger signs and making timely use of maternal health services. Community-based education can improve knowledge, while integrating basic screening may increase the relevance of health messages by linking education with individual health assessment. Objective: This study evaluated changes in maternal health knowledge after an integrated community-based maternal health education and screening program among pregnant women in Bali, Indonesia. Methods: A quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest study was conducted among 15 pregnant women in Carangsari Village, Bali, recruited purposively from local maternal health services. The program combined education on pregnancy danger signs, maternal nutrition, anemia prevention, and oral health with hemoglobin testing, mid-upper arm circumference measurement, and oral health examination. Maternal knowledge was measured using the same structured questionnaire before and after the program. Descriptive statistics summarized participant characteristics and knowledge scores, and a paired t-test assessed the pre-post change in overall knowledge. Results: The mean overall maternal knowledge score increased from 56.0 before the program to 82.7 after the program, an absolute increase of 26.7 points and a relative increase of 47.7% (p < 0.001). Improvements were also observed across all four knowledge domains, with the largest relative increase in knowledge of pregnancy danger signs. Conclusion: The integrated community-based program was associated with a substantial immediate improvement in maternal knowledge. Because the study used a small purposive sample and had no control group, the findings should be interpreted as preliminary and should be confirmed in larger controlled studies.]]>
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