Programming :: Getting Return Value From Program Ran In Background?

I think my title pretty much explains it. I am writing a script and I want to start a program in the background, and when that program finishes I want to check the return value to make sure there was no error.For example normal I would do something like this:

#!/bin/sh
program
if [ ! $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "There was an error"
exit 1
fi

Now I want to do something like this:

#!/bin/sh
PRTN=`program1 &`
program2
if [ ! $? -eq 0 ]; then

[code]....

In this case if program2 finishes before program1, I don't think the return value from program1 $PRTN would be valid at the time it is checked.