Brief Interventions for At-Risk Drinking Can Increase Workplace Productivity
Brief motivational interventions offer personalized feedback about clients' drinking patterns to raise their awareness about their drinking and assist them to take steps toward improving their health. Such interventions can be done in an hour or less and have been shown to be effective at reducing heavy alcohol use and related consequences. Newly published DPRC research shows that in so doing, these interventions also increase productivity on the job.
The researchers conducted a small pilot study involving workers who were seeking help through their employee assistance programs (EAPs). The team first screened a sample of such workers for at-risk drinking1, then offered a brief intervention to 25 employees who screened positive. Three months later, the employees were asked about two productivity-related measures: absenteeism, or the number of workdays missed, and "presenteeism," or the level of productivity while at work. The latter was rated relative to the employees' impression of other workers' productivity. The same questions were asked of 19 workers who screened positive for at-risk drinking but who received only the usual care through their EAPs.
Differences between the two groups in absenteeism following the brief intervention were not statistically significant. But the differences in presenteeism, when expressed in monetary terms based on the employees' daily rates and improved productivity, amounted to almost $1200 saved per employee who received the intervention, compared to those who received only usual care. The findings provide preliminary evidence of the added value of integrating alcohol screening and brief interventions into EAPs and of the broader impact such interventions might have on the workplace population.
Savings for each group control for baseline values and are in reference to the difference in relative productivity from baseline to follow-up. For usual care, the negative number indicates that relative productivity worsened over the course of the study.
1 At-risk drinking is defined as scores of 4 or more for men and 3 or more for women on the AUDIT-C. At-risk drinking is associated with substantial alcohol-related problems, e.g., working while intoxicated, but not yet indicative of clinical dependence on alcohol.
Source:
"Exploring Productivity Outcomes from a Brief Intervention for At-Risk Drinking in an Employee Assistance Program," in Addictive Behaviors, Osilla KC, delaCruz E, Miles JNV, Zellmer S, Watkins K, Larimer ME, Marlatt AG
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