Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) deliver a variety of services that help employees resolve personal problems that may adversely impact their work performance, conduct, health, and well-being.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of its EAP services, Federal Occupational Health’s (FOH’s) EAP Services Division collected and analyzed data from nearly 60,000 EAP clients over a three year period. Data was collected from Federal employees and family members in more than 400 agencies that utilize FOH’s EAP services.

FOH obtained information that measured six areas of functioning: (1) Productivity affected by mental health; (2) Productivity affected by physical health; (3) Work and social relationships; (4) General health status; (5) Absenteeism from work or tardiness, and; (6) Global assessed functioning. Both clients and their counselors provided information about functioning and level of activity for the period before utilizing EAP services and upon completion of EAP counseling services. EAP clients were asked to complete pre- and post-questionnaires while counselors used a diagnostic measure known as the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF).

Based on the pre- and post questionnaires, FOH found that clients who used the EAP had significant improvements in all six areas of functioning. The key findings of the study include:

• Clients’ unplanned absences and tardiness from work decreased by an average of 1.5 days per case.
• Counselors’ report of the clients’ clinical functioning, or GAF, on average rose by 10 percent.
• People reporting a great amount of difficulty doing their daily work due to emotional problems before using the FOH EAP counseling services showed a 73% productivity improvement rate after using FOH EAP services.