The Lam Employment Absence and Productivity Scale (LEAPS)

  • The Lam Employment Absence and Productivity Scale, or LEAPS, provides important information on how patients are functioning at work. This tool can help clinicians make management decisions such as whether or not a patient should stay at work, whether work functioning improves along with symptoms, and whether changes in treatment are needed to optimize work functioning.
  • The LEAPS was designed specifically for the clinical practice setting. It is a 10-item, self-rated scale that takes only 3 to 5 minutes for the patient to complete. It is simple and easy to use. Patients can complete the LEAPS in the waiting room or at home, and can score it themselves.
  • The items were chosen based on the symptoms that have the most impact on work productivity and the most common productivity problems experienced by patients with depression. The LEAPS was initially validated in a sample of 234 consecutive working patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD) attending a mood disorders outpatient clinic (Lam RW et al, 2009).
  • While the LEAPS total score provides an overall assessment of a patient’s functioning at work, the 3-item LEAPS Productivity Subscale Score (sum of the 3 items: getting less work done, doing poor quality work, making more mistakes) can provide specific information about work performance.
  • How can the LEAPS be used to guide clinical management of working patients with depression? Since the LEAPS is not a diagnostic tool, it should be used in conjunction with a symptom rating scale such as the PHQ-9 or the QIDS-SR. A key benefit of the LEAPS scale is that the total score can provide a quick measure of the degree of impairment in a patient’s occupational functioning.
  • The individual productivity items and the Productivity Subscale Score can also help guide treatment decisions, including whether it is appropriate and/or safe for the patient to remain at work, or whether the patient should take time off work. For example, a patient in a safety-sensitive job who endorses making more mistakes at work might benefit from workplace accommodation or a leave from work.
  • The LEAPS can also help monitor changes in occupational functioning during treatment. The minimal clinically important difference (MCID) can be used to determine whether there is clinically significant improvement in work functioning. By using a validated tool such as the LEAPS, clinicians can be assured they are monitoring functional outcomes in a standardized way.
  • Furthermore, the LEAPS can serve as a useful charting tool to assess patient progress. The LEAPS total score provides a quick gauge of how the patient is functioning at work, which can save clinicians time by eliminating the need to write notes describing how the patient is doing.
  • Patients can fill in the LEAPS during follow-up visits (for example, at 4-week intervals or as clinically appropriate). Ideally, improvements in work functioning should parallel improvements in symptoms, however full functional recovery may take longer to achieve than symptomatic remission.

Download the LEAPS

  • Please note, the LEAPS is freely available for individual clinical use.
    For other uses, including research and commercial purposes, please contact Dr. Lam, r.lam@ubc.ca

Video about using the LEAPS

References and Citations for the LEAPS

Click on link for pdf copy of papers (if link unavailable or not accessible, please contact r.lam@ubc.ca for pdf)

 

Last updated on April 15, 2026 @11:23 pm