[Disease awareness among oncology patients]

The characteristics of the disease awareness in cancer patients were analyzed. On the basis of the clinico-psychological examination over time of 250 cancer patients, the mechanisms of disorders of the disease awareness have been specified. These include a shift of the subjective zero of assessment, a change in the health ideal standard, fragmentation and retrospective overestimation of one's health, formation of a specific semantico-perceptive protection leading to an increase in the level of idefiniteness of negatively evaluated stimuli. The factors influencing the structure of the disease awareness as well as their association with deontological approaches are described.