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A great deal of clinical cancer care is delivered in the home by informal caregivers (e.g. family, friends), who are often untrained. Caregivers' context varies widely, with many providing care despite low levels of resources and high levels of additional demands.

Background: Changes in health care have shifted much cancer care to the home, with limited data to inform this transition. We studied the characteristics, care tasks, and needs of informal caregivers of cancer patients.

Methods: Caregivers of seven geographically and institutionally defined cohorts of newly diagnosed colorectal and lung cancer patients completed self‐administered questionnaires (n = 677). We combined this information with patient survey and chart abstraction data and focused on caregivers who reported providing, unpaid, at least 50% of the patient's informal cancer care.

Results: Over half of caregivers (55%) cared for a patient with …