Assessing Effects of Treatment for Substance Abuse: A Further Contribution to the Validation of the Employee Reliability Inventory

Abstract

Scores on a scale designed to assess the likelihood of freedom from job-disruptive substance use were compared for three groups: (1) individuals whose current substance use had disrupted their job performance and necessitated treatment, (2) individuals who successfully completed treatment for substance abuse, and (3) a representative subset of a geographically and occupationally diverse group of job applicants (N > 43,000). The results appear consistent with the hypothesis that this scale validly measures behavioral changes related to job performance which are associated with successful treatment of substance abuse. Scores on the scale differentiated untreated substance users from those who had successfully undergone treatment. Scores for the successfully treated group were the same as those for the general group of job applicants. That is, scores did not differentiate successfully treated former substance users from a general group of job applicants. For the subset of the successfully treated group who became employed during the study period, scores were better for those individuals who successfully completed a minimum of 30 days on the job.

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