Employee Assistance Program Counseling in the U.S. Technology Industry: Clinical and Work Outcome Risks and Results for 5,869 Cases at CuraLinc Healthcare
Attridge, Mark ; Pawlowski, David
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Abstract
This applied study explored the role of behavioral health issues among workers in the technology industry in the United States. The technology industry account for about 5% of employees in the total U.S. workforce in year 2024. The study featured EAP data collected over a 7-year period from employee users of individual counseling or coaching from a single national EAP business in the United States (CuraLinc Healthcare). The larger full sample included 85,432 clients who worked at 2,679 different employers. The EAP user sample for the technology industry group included 5,869 employee clients who worked at 229 different employers. Longitudinal data at 30-days post use was obtained from 9,063 cases in the full sample (of which 734 were from the technology industry). The technology industry client sample was 57% women and 43% men, average age of 39 years, 93% used the EAP for counseling (7% for coaching), 99% were voluntary self-referrals (<1% were formally referred by a manager at work), 61% met with a counselor in person at a local clinical office (39% online video) and the typical treatment episode lasted about 7 weeks (47 days). The reasons why employees in the technology industry used the EAP was to address issues of mental health (43%), stress and personal life issues (28%), marriage and family issues (17%), work-related issues (6%) and substance use problems (2%). The EAP user profile for workers in technology – compared to the 7 other industries – was relatively higher in use of coaching, lower in formal management referrals, and average on other factors. When starting to use the EAP many of the cases in technology reported having clinical level symptoms on standardized measures for anxiety disorder (41% at-risk), depression disorder (27% at-risk), alcohol misuse disorder (12% at-risk) and low work productivity (47% at problem level). Among cases initially at-risk at Pre, most had recovered after use to no longer be at-risk for anxiety, for depression and for work productivity. The technology industry had the highest rate of recovery among all industries in the level of clinical improvement after using the EAP for anxiety (82%), depression (93%) and also work productivity (91%). Those who started with a work productivity problem changed from 61 work hours lost per month at Pre to 22 hours at Post. The hours of restored work productivity was estimated to be a $2,665 value per month per case who initially had this problem. Recent data on number of worker, number of employers, worker age, gender, private/public sector, union representation, compensation, and safety from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is also presented to provide a larger context for this industry.
