Counseling Outcomes at a U.S. Department of Defense Employee Assistance Program

Abstract

As part of a quality improvement initiative, counseling outcomes were reviewed at a Department of Defense employee assistance program (EAP). One hundred clients completed a self-report instrument, the Outcome Questionnaire 45.2, prior to their intake interview and again prior to their last counseling session. Counselors rated the clients on the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale immediately after the intake interview and again at case closing. In the closing summary, counselors also rated each client's perceived level of improvement on the major goals established at the beginning of counseling. The majority of clients reported less overall dysfunction (86%), less subjective distress (79%), better interpersonal relations (68%), and better functioning at work (68%) at case closing than at intake. Results on the counselor-completed scale of perceived improvement were very similar to client self-ratings. The GAF showed somewhat less sensitivity to change in general and deterioration in particular. The findings are consistent with other studies of counseling outcome in EAP settings and suggest that EAP counseling of short to moderate duration can result in less distress and better functioning for a majority of clients.

Keywords:

• counseling outcomes
• Employee Assistance Program
• Outcome Questionnaire–45.2

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the entire staff of the Employee Assistance Service for their roles in collecting the data used in this study and for their many useful suggestions. Dr. David Servinsky reviewed an early draft of this manuscript, and provided many helpful comments. Dr. Wayne Baughman calculated the Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the OQ TS and subscales. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors, and not of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Notes

Note. OQ-TS = Outcome Questionnaire–Total Score; GAF = Global Assessment of Functioning; PIR = Problem Improvement Rating.

^a The decrease from intake to termination is significant at the p < .001 level (t test).

^b Reliable change was defined as follows: for the OQ-TS, ±≥ 14; for the GAF, ±≥ 5; and for the PIR, ±≥ 1.0.

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