"Abstract. Purpose. Despite advances in therapies that offer improved. survival rates, clinical course of brain tumours leads to a. progressive functional deterioration in patients with. modifications in their psychological reaction to the. disease. Patients with brain tumours are rarely assessed. for quality of life and psychological variables, and even. fewer studies have assessed patients who have experienced. a recurrence of brain tumours. Therefore, the aim. of the present study is to investigate the patients with. recurrent brain tumours and their reaction to the illness.. Method We enrolled 81 patients with recurrent CNS. tumours. Karnofsky Performance Status scale (KPS) was. used to evaluate functional status of patients; the multidimensional. aspect of quality of life was assessed through. “Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Brain” (FACTBr),. “Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale” and “Psychological. Distress Inventory”. These were all used as tests. of psychological well-being.. Results Distress and almost all mean FACT-Br subscale. scores seemed to be significantly lower in patients, in. comparison with normative data. Surprisingly, the emotional. well-being mean score was significantly higher in our. recurrence sample than in patients with brain tumours at first. diagnosis. Anxiety seemed not to be influenced by a relapse. diagnosis; instead, depression was higher and differed. significantly from normative data. Low correlation between. KPS and FACT-Br total and some sub-scores was found.. Conclusions Apparent dissociation between patients' judgment. on their quality of life (bad except for emotional) and. their reported distress (low) is the most intriguing finding,. suggesting highly preserved coping strategies in the. emotional sphere, despite intact judgment and disease. awareness."