Family functioning but not social capital is associated with better mental health in adolescents affected by violence and displacement by armed conflict in Colombia.

Background: The effect of the Colombian armed conflict on the mental health of adolescents is still poorly understood.

Aims: Given social interventions are most likely to inform policy, we tested whether two potential intervention targets, family functioning and social capital, were associated with mental health in Colombian adolescents, and whether this was moderated by experience of violence and displacement.

Methods: We examined the cross-sectional association between family functioning, cognitive social capital, structural social capital and 12-month prevalence of Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) diagnosed psychiatric disorder, using data on 12 to 17-year-old adolescents ( = 1,754) from the 2015 National Mental Health Survey of Colombia, a nationally representative epidemiological study.