comparison

Objective:

The aim ofthe study was to investigate the long-term effects oftorture in a group of former political prisoners.

Method:

The study was carried out in Istanbul, Turkey, where 55 Turkish political activists who had been tortured were compared with a closely matched group of 55 activists who had not been tortured. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSMIII-R, the Semistructured Interview for Survivors of Torture, and other self-rated and assessor-rated measures of anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD) were used. The tortured and the nontortured activists were similar in age, sex, marital and socioeconomic status, political ideology, political involvement, stressful life events other than torture, and other features.