OBJECTIVES: The identification and management of unmet supportive care needs is an essential component of health care for people with cancer.  The study aimed to evaluate the informative, psychological, social, and practical needs, focusing on information needs over two consecutive (one-month)  assessments. METHODS: The study was a longitudinal research. A total of 245 consecutive patients at IDI-IRCCS, Rome, were enrolled. They filled the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) and the Need Evaluation Questionnaire (NEQ) at baseline and one month later (n.115).  The psychometric properties of questionnaires have been well documented in literature. ESAS is a questionnaire with 10 items describing cancer related symptoms in the visual analogue scales. NEQ is a standardized questionnaire for psychosocial needs. Multiple logistic regressions were used to examine the association between information needs and patient characteristics. RESULTS: Patients need more information about their own disease condition (preference information ranking: prognosis, treatment, exams, diagnosis). Patients with higher education (OR 2.20; p=0.052) need to be more informed about diagnosis and more involved in their therapeutic choices (OR 2.37; p=0.053). Women need physicians to be more sincere with them (OR 2.70; p=0.029). Patients, positive to the question on  ESAS depression  (cut off ≥7) believe they need more explanations about treatments (p=0.005), more comprehensible information from health personnel (p=0.015), more sincerity (p=0.039 ) and  more reassurance by clinicians (p=0.007 ) compared to the negative ones.Still the information needs seem to be stable over time: 70 % of patients showed similar ranking at follow-up. Patients with modified needs at the one-month assessment (30%) are equally divided into two groups. No statically significant differences were observed between groups. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study showed that monitoring patients understanding and preferences for information, in the complex process of patient-physician communication, is relevant to tailor exhaustive explanation for each patient.