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Abstract

News — Psychological depression has emerged as a global concern, leading to increased employee absenteeism and reduced productivity. Rising healthcare expenditures compound the issue, negatively impacting employees’ healthcare benefits and treatment options. Therefore, it becomes imperative for organizations to understand the efficacy of alternative healthcare benefits in addressing employee absences. Conservation of resources theory provides an analytical framework integrating diverse data sources to investigate this matter. We explored the relationship of no therapy, medication, and psychological therapies with employee absenteeism over time. Findings revealed psychological therapy exhibited greater efficacy in reducing absenteeism for depression, yielding sustained benefits throughout the episode. Conversely, the effectiveness of depression medications overall had a small short-term and no long-term relationship to absenteeism. These findings have significant implications for employers and employees, potentially leading to improved healthcare benefit offerings with concomitant reductions in employee absenteeism.