Intervention provision and engagement in Colombia's PAPSIVI - a national psychosocial support service for over half a million victims of armed conflict.

Abstract

Background: Colombia's PAPSIVI program is the world's largest psychosocial support service for victims of armed conflict providing support for over half a million civilians. However, service delivery has only previously been examined in small studies, making it difficult to understand to what extent PAPSIVI delivers interventions that are adequately targeted to individuals with the most serious exposures to the armed conflict, and to what extent attendees remain engaged with interventions.

Methods: We investigated how different conflict exposures related to PAPSIVI intervention assignment and engagement. We linked anonymised national data from the register of victims of the Colombian armed conflict to data from N = 534,818 PAPSIVI attenders. Analysis used logistic and linear regression with cluster robust standard errors, adjusted for a range of potential confounders.

Results: Intervention types were broadly provided in line with PAPSIVI guidelines, with victims experiencing torture, sexual violence, and forced recruitment more likely to receive individual sessions, while community-level impacts received community interventions. Female sex, ethnic minority status, and receiving state-subsidised healthcare were associated with higher intervention engagement. Those with previous mental health diagnoses had increased odds of attending individual or family sessions but lower odds of group or community sessions, consistent with recommendations for more intensive intervention for those with higher mental health needs. 29% of individual session attendees only received a single session, potentially indicating early dropout or unsuitable service provision for a proportion of attendees.

Conclusions: This study provides insights into support provision for civilian victims of conflict indicating that psychosocial support provision can be managed effectively at very large scales.