Impact of patient variables on successful intervention in an industrial counseling program

The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate potential predictors of counseling outcome utilizing a brief cognitive-behavioral counseling approach within an industrial Employee Assistance Program (EAP). These relationships were investigated in a study of 115 counselees who received brief counseling for a variety of personal problems. The measures of treatment outcome were counselee evaluation of outcome utilizing the Malan rating scale and level of counselee absenteeism on the job. The predictor variables evaluated were career competence, social competence, job performance, occupational/income level, educational level, marital status, age, referral source, problem severity and counselor empathy.

The results showed that six predictor variables were correlated with outcome as measured by counselee evaluation at an alpha = .01 level. High counselor empathy, as measured by counselee evaluation, was the strongest predictor of successful counseling outcome. Counselees with more severe problems showed the next strongest association with successful outcome. Lower levels of career competence, social competence, job performance and occupational/income level also showed significant associations with successful outcome.

The level of employee absenteeism was not a good measure of counseling outcome but reduced absenteeism showed potential as a behavioral measure of counseling outcome. However, none of the predictor variables were correlated with counseling outcome as measured by reduced absenteeism.

Results did indicate that counseling interventions through an industrial Employee Assistance Program do reduce employee absenteeism.