The Psychological Health of Iranian Citizens Protesting the Actions of Their Country's Morality Police: La santé psychologique des citoyens iraniens qui manifestent contre les actions de la police des mœurs de leur pays.

Abstract

Objective: To determine the mental health of Iranian citizens protesting the actions of their country's Morality Police. Street protests across Iran were met with violent suppression that included security forces reportedly targeting protestors' eyes.

Method: A group of 63 Iranian protestors (58.7% female; mean age 32.0 [SD = 9.43] years, from all socio-economic classes) who had been part of street protests against the regime's morality police, was recruited by convenience sampling between May and August 2023 by journalists working underground in Iran. The study was conducted in Farsi by telephone (n = 60) and in-person (n = 3). Demographic and psychometric data were collected, the latter including symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Impact of Events Scale-Revised) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory-Revised), in Farsi-validated scales. Between-group comparisons were undertaken with one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey comparisons. Significance was set at P < 0.05.

Results: The protestors comprised three groups: not wounded (n = 27: 59.26% female, mean age 34.44 [SD = 12.11] years), non-eye wound (n = 23; 60.87% female, mean age 32.61 [SD = 5.89] years) and eye-wound (n = 13; 53.85% female, mean age 27.54 [SD = 6.58] years). The eye wound group (blinded in one or both eyes) had less severe intrusion symptoms of PTSD (P = 0.048) and depression (P = 0.0001) than the non-eye wound group. The not wounded group had less severe symptoms of depression than the non-eye wound group (P = 0.003). Every protestor who had lost sight regarded their actions, notwithstanding their physical consequences, in a positive psychological light.

Conclusions: Contrary to our a-prior hypothesis, Iranian protestors blinded in one or both eyes were faring better psychologically than protestors with non-eye wounds. Possible reasons for this included higher rates of psychological treatment and social support in the eye-wound group compared to the other two groups post-injury and the nascent development of posttraumatic growth.