EAP Service Use in a Managed Behavioral Health Care Organization: From the Employee Perspective

Abstract

Contemporary Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services are typically provided in broad-brush programs delivered by large external vendors in a network model. Yet research has not kept pace with EAP evolution, including in terms of how EAP clients themselves view services. The authors surveyed a random sample of EAP service users from a national provider (361 respondents). About one third of respondents reported getting help for workplace issues. Most learned about the EAP through employer communications such as the company Web site. The large majority reported that the EAP helped them “a lot” or “some,” suggesting they valued this benefit.

KEYWORDS:

• consumers
• employee assistance programs
• experience of care
• mental health
• substance abuse
• utilization
• workplace

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse through the Brandeis/Harvard Research Center on Managed Care and Drug Abuse Treatment (grant #P50 DA010233-09). The authors thank Galina Zolotusky for programming, Grant Ritter for statistical consultation, Kikumi Usui and Nancy Pun for administrative data file preparation, Amity Quinn for research assistance, Michele Hutcheon for manuscript preparation, and Vanessa Azzone for helpful comments on this manuscript.

Notes

Note. N varies for some rows due to missing data or conditional response; percents are based on non-missing data, missing <5% for all variables.

Note. Ns for each row vary slightly due to missing data, missing <5% for all variables; or due to conditional items; percents based on nonmissing data. Totals of mutually exclusive categories may not equal 100% due to rounding.