Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention (SBI) in Telephonic Employee Assistance Programs

Substantial empirical support exists for alcohol screening and brief intervention (SBI) in medical, but not nonmedical settings. A pre- and postdesign is used to examine the effects of an alcohol SBI program implemented telephonically by Employee Assistance Program (EAP) specialists at OptumHealth Behavioral Solutions. Identification rates of risky alcohol use were significantly higher for the Post-SBI Time Period compared to the Pre-SBI Time Period (7.5% vs. 20.1%, p < .0001). The Post-SBI Time Period compared to the Pre-SBI Time Period also had higher rates of delivering EAP telephonic alcohol education/risk reduction interventions (9.8% vs. 13.3%, p < .05). This study found positive benefits when translating evidence-based alcohol SBI protocol for telephonic EAP.