From Persecution to Prison - Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of ...

such as a history of torture, sexual assault, and other traumatic eventswere coded using the trauma portion of the HTQ.Human Subject ProtectionsAll prospective study participants were informed of the voluntary natureof the study and that participation (or refusal) would not affect their asylumapplications in any way. After they were informed of the nature of thestudy, all participants provided written consent. This study was approvedby the Institutional Review Board of New York University School of Medicine,and a review committee from Physicians for Human Rights. In orderto maintain confidentiality, names of individuals, countries of origin, andthe names of the detention facilities are omitted from the sections of thisreport containing narrative information. Participants did not receive anycompensation or other incentive for study participation.Statistical AnalysisFrequency analyses were used to describe the sample characteristics andresponses to the individual questionnaire items. The relationship betweenexperiences in detention and psychological distress was analyzed usingnon-parametric analyses including Spearman’s Rho for continuous variables(e.g., the relationship between psychological distress and length oftime incarcerated), the Chi-Square test of association (e.g., the relationshipbetween suicidal ideation and experiences in detention) and the Mann-Whitney U-test (for group comparisons along the psychological distressvariables). Non-parametric analyses were utilized because many of thecontinuous variables were skewed (e.g., length of time incarcerated).METHODS 47