One hundred and sixteen cancer patients were interviewed in order to investigate whether the Greek cancer patient wants to be informed and whether he knows his true diagnosis and prognosis of his illness. A semistructured interview was used and also a number of psychological parameters were assessed. Though only 15.5% of the patients named their real diagnosis, according to the interviewer’s assessment 53% were strongly suspicious of their real diagnosis and 55 % suspected their real prognosis. Furthermore, 49 % when asked directly answered that they wanted to know if they had cancer and 49% disagreed with the policy of withholding the truth from the patient. The policy of telling or not telling the truth to the cancer patient in Greece is discussed in comparison with policies and attitudes in other countries.

Cancer has a profound psychological impact upon the patient and his family, and the psychological responses, primarily of the patient himself, the close family, physician and nursing personnel, but also of the extended family, and society in general, become a complex interrelationship. Some of the most important psychological aspects of cancer are reviewed. These include the psychological responses of the patient, such as denial, vulnerability, coping strategies, hope, depression, suicide, reaction to diagnosis, and the management of the family, and the psychological responses and attitudes of the physician and nursing personnel. Based on the above psychological analysis some guidelines are offered to help in coping with cancer.

A three-part questionnaire was mailed to Greek cancer specialists practicing in the two largest cities of Greece. Part I addressed the question of telling the truth to the cancer patient, Part II the question of telling the truth to the terminal cancer patient, and Part III investigated the psychological difficulties of the above specialists in the care of their patients. Most of the Greek cancer specialists (73%) chose not to tell the diagnosis to the cancer patient and an even greater majority (95%) prefer not to inform the terminal cancer patient of his impending death. A considerable number of them, though (41%), favor a change towards telling the cancer patient his true diagnosis. Furthermore, two thirds of them admit to psychological problems in their contact with the cancer patient and subscribe to the need for specific psychiatric training to improve the care of their patients.

The psychiatric investigation of a sample of 101 epileptic patients (65 temporal lobe epileptics (TLE) and 36 non-TLE) through various methods of evaluation, showed that only a minority of TLE with DSM-III diagnoses of Organic Brain Syndromes had severe psychopathology and manifested some personality traits. Thus, these patients seem to be differentiated from the rest of epileptics, TLE and non-TLE, who had quite "benign" psychological problems, if at all. It is quite probable that this sub-group of TLE could be the main instigators and perpetrators of the "bad image" of epileptics. The findings are discussed in relation to the pertinent literature and some hypotheses are offered for their explanation.

The dexamethasone suppression test (DST) was administered to 30 inpatients who met the DSM-III-R criteria for chronic schizophrenia and shared similar environments. Four of them (13%) were DST nonsuppressors. The mean and maximum postdexamethasone cortisol levels were correlated with the patient's score on the scale for the Schedule for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms and with the score on the anergia subscale of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. None of the correlations were statistically significant. Furthermore, the scores on the above scales were not significantly correlated with clinical variables such as duration of illness, number of admissions or length of hospitalization, nor were any significant correlations found between the postdexamethasone cortisol levels and the score on the Beck Depression Inventory. In addition, depressed and nondepressed schizophrenics did not differ regarding the rate of nonsuppression and the postdexamethasone cortisol levels. This study found that: 1) dexamethasone nonsuppression in schizophrenia was not related to the presence of negative symptoms; 2) there was no relationship between negative symptoms and illness variables; and 3) the depressed schizophrenics did not display increased nonsuppression compared with nondepressed schizophrenics.