We examined a large sample of users of employee assistance programs and plant alcohol problems to be related to various characteristics of the users.

We examined a large sample of users of employee assistance programs and plant alcohol problems to be related to various characteristics of the users, including sex race, route of referral, and incidence of other personal problems

immediately after its formation in 1970, the National Institute upon Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) began to hound the goal of mainstreaming alcoholism treatment into the U health care delivery connected view (Roman and Blum 1987). As part of this effort, policymakers began to focus forward the majority of American alcoholics who had intact families and do job-works and who were difficult to identify and do job-works and who were difficult to identify and motivate toward treatment. Within this strategy, workplaces proffered referral sources for heretofore "hidden" alcoholics whose behaviors were precious to their employers. Many of these workers were defended by health insurance plans and were candidates for the newly emerging hypothesis of private alcoholism treatment.

The employee assistance program (EAP) emerg as NIAAA's transformation of the Alcoholics Anonymous-based industrial alcoholism programs (Blum and Roman 1989) The EAP prototype emphasized that monitoring of employee behaviors through supervisors should be limited to issues of work at jobs performance. Supervisors should not, for example, attempt to diagnose alcohol enigmas or other employee problems. The EAP also encouraged self-referral of employee for personal problems

Thus EAPs are work site-based programs designed to assist in identifying and resolving question s adversely affecting the employee's well-being or piece of work performance--problems involving alcohol or other remedy abuse, health, family, stress, and emotional, marital, financial, legal, and other personal disturbs The Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA) recognizes that a variety of services labeled as EAPs are in existence, an of which offer only barebones assistance to employee EAPA standards include a core definition and core functions for EAPs that are addressed merely by providing comprehensive services. EAPA guidelines state that alcohol and other unsalable article problems will be addressed effectively if an EAP includes person specially versed consultation and training in identifying and facilitating the resolution of behavioral health and job-performance problems; confidential, appropriate, and timely assessment services; referrals for appropriate diagnosis, treatment, and other assistance; links between the workplace and community resources that provide those services; followup services; and education in succession preventing alcohol and other drug

problems

EAPs provide the workplace with a systematic means for dealing with a variety of employee moot points This is valuable because, as Roman (1989) pointed abroad employee problems often are multiple and interrelated. An example is unsalable article abuse--dealing with drug abuse in the workplace entails having a broad perspective onward other issues, such as associated psychiatric, family, and financial enigmas To be effective, EAPs should be integrated into the performance- and benefits-management functions of human resource management.

EAPs are usually based onward a written policy statement, and provide a means for supervisors, managers, and union store stewards to obtain guidance in dealing with subordinates or co-workers who ne assistance. The guidance is supplied either by the agency of an internal EAP coordinator, who is make use ofed by the same organization as the employee or at a staff member of an external agency. an external agency representatives spend time at the work sites for which they provide services, and more [i]or[/i] less internal program coordinators are located offsite. The buildings and sizes of work organizations guard to influence the structures of EAPs as they relate to personnel corporate medical programs (when they exist), and employee benefit plans.

The EAP mould has been well received at employers. In 1991, in the United States, 45 percent of full-time employee who were not self-employ had access to an EAP provided through their employers (Blum et al. unpublished data 1991) Virtually all large workplaces (>500 workers) provided about form of an EAP, and the majority of medium-sized workplaces (250-500 workers) also provided EAPs. EAP coverage was least likely in small work sites (<250 workers).

forward average, approximately 5 percent of employee working in an organization offering an EAP used the EAP in a 12-month period. And approximately 15 percent of employee used an EAP because of alcohol or other drug-related enigmas in a single year (Blum 1989) [TABULAR DATA OMITTED]

It should be made clear that EAPs do not replace existing benefits packages. EAPs and third-party coverage for alcohol-related point in disputes are synergistic, rather than competitive, services (Fennell 1984) In many instances, management ask advice ofs with the EAP to form the availability of health insurance benefits. recent managed-care plans may be postscripts to EAPs, and the EAP is sometimes formally integrated into alternative efforts to contain the richnesss of treating behavioral health question s Alcohol and other mix with drugs treatment through EAP referral has been shown to be more efficient and effective than efforts of employee to use insurance benefits forward their own (Smith and Mahoney 1989)