Psychotherapy to treat consequences of interpersonal violence suffered in childhood and adolescence in Latin America: A systematic review

Introduction/Objective. As in the rest of the world, in Latin America there is a high prevalence of interpersonal violence (IV) in childhood and adolescence, which is associated with psychological consequences in the short, medium and long term. At the international level, progress has been made in the recognition of evidence-based psychotherapies, but the situation in Latin America is unknown. The objective of this systematic review of the literature is to identify which models or modalities of psychotherapy have been shown to be effective in Latin America.
Methods. A systematic search of five databases was carried out with search terms relating to psychosocial interventions people exposed to IV during childhood, based in Latin America. Studies on Latino populations based in United States were excluded.
Results. 14 papers describing 13 studies and one follow-up were identified. Individual and group interventions (mainly cognitive-behavioural and with psychodynamic influence) were included. Although all showed clinically or statistically significant changes in symptoms of post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression, most were pilot studies with important methodological limitations and high risk of bias.
Conclusions. It is necessary to progress clinical practice in Latin America with more robust research (i.e. controlled and randomized clinical trials) that produce more reliable evidence of the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for IV in children and adolescents in in the Latin American context.