A Survey of Employee Assistance Programs and Health Promotion Programs at Ontario Worksites

Abstract

A survey was conducted among a representative sample of Ontario worksites with 50 or more employees to assess the nature and extent of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and Health Promotion across the province. While an overall response rate of 78% was obtained for completion of the questionnaire, information on whether or not organizations had an EAP was obtained for nearly 100% of the sample. Results indicated that 16.1% of worksites have EAPs, representing approximately 27.3% of the province's employees. Overall, 35.8% of the organizations that returned the questionnaire had at least one of eleven health promotion programs. Further analysis revealed that government, health and education services were more likely to have EAPs, whereas the construction and retail trades were underrepresented. Results also indicated that 53.1% of worksites with EAPs had mechanisms for both voluntary and formal referrals. Outside resources for treatment were used by 93.6% of the EAPs and 90.5% were "broad brush." The most common health promotion initiatives were distribution of information on healthy lifestyles (25.1%) and smoking cessation programs (23.7%). A small percentage of organizations (4.3%) had day care facilities. Chi square tests of significance revealed that organizations with EAPs were more likely to provide all types of health promotion programs.