Objective To deeply understand the attitudes of advanced cancer patients and family caregivers towards to information seeking when they take part in shared decision making with health professionals in palliative care department, to explore the diffe-rence between them, and to provide reference for clinical staffers to choose a better way of communication. Methods By purposeful sampling, 15 patients admitted to the palliative care department for advanced cancer, and 12 family caregivers were selected. This qualitative study involved semi-structured face-to-face interviews of the participants, and Colaizzi′s analytical method was used to analyze the interview data and extract themes. Results From the perspective of attitudes in common held by the patients and family caregivers, three themes were extracted:proactive information seeking, seeking good news and avoiding harmful information, and evasive and negative information seeking. From the perspective of divisive attitudes held by the patients and family caregivers, three themes were extracted:patients fostered passive information seeking, family caregivers adopted ambivalent information seeking, and the latter also tried to seek information while shutting patients out. Conclusion In light of the features of information seeking by patients and their family, medical workers are obliged to make dynamic assessment of their attitudes towards information seeking, provide personalized information support, and satisfy their needs, in a bid to push forward implementation of shared decision-making.