Here are some of the best questions for a Clinical Trial Participants survey about decentralized trial experience, plus tips on crafting them. You can quickly generate a tailored survey using Specific’s AI-powered tools in seconds.
Best open-ended questions for Clinical Trial Participants about decentralized trial experience
Open-ended questions are essential when you need depth, nuance, and honest feedback from clinical trial participants. They let people share their unique perspectives, reduce bias, and reveal details you might never expect. This is especially valuable in decentralized clinical trials, where understanding varied participant experiences is crucial. Open-ended questions not only collect richer insights but help uncover context and explanation behind each answer, leading to better trial design and support for future participants. They facilitate exploration of complex issues and encourage detailed responses, resulting in truly valuable data [1] [2] [3].
What aspects of participating in this decentralized trial were most helpful for you, and why?
Can you share any challenges or barriers you faced while taking part in this remote clinical trial?
How did the decentralized format (e.g., home visits, telehealth, remote monitoring) impact your comfort or convenience?
In what ways did you feel supported (or unsupported) by the trial staff during this experience?
Describe any technical difficulties or issues you encountered with devices, apps, or data submission.
Which elements of the decentralized experience would you like to see improved for future trials?
How did participating from home affect your adherence to the study protocol or your engagement?
Are there any features or resources you wish were offered to make your experience better?
What motivated you to enroll and stay engaged in a decentralized format clinical trial?
Is there anything else you'd like us to know about your overall experience with this decentralized clinical trial?
These types of questions allow respondents to express themselves freely and ensure a user-centric, honest exploration of their experience—something a checkbox will never capture [1] [3].
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for Clinical Trial Participants about decentralized trial experience
Single-select multiple-choice questions work best when you want to quantify responses or make it quick and easy for participants to answer. They’re especially useful at the beginning of a survey or when you want to spot patterns quickly. For clinical trial participants, these questions can highlight overall trends and guide you to the right follow-up for deeper feedback. Multiple-choice choices can also get the conversation started, making it less mentally taxing for respondents who aren’t sure how to begin.
Question: How satisfied were you with the overall decentralized trial experience?
Very satisfied
Somewhat satisfied
Neutral
Somewhat dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
Question: Which aspect of the decentralized format worked best for you?
Telehealth consultations
Remote monitoring devices
Home medication delivery
Flexible scheduling
Other
Question: Did you encounter any technology challenges during the trial?
Yes, frequently
Yes, occasionally
No
When to follow up with “why?” If somebody selects “Somewhat dissatisfied” or “Very dissatisfied,” it’s crucial to dig deeper. Ask, for example, “Why did you feel dissatisfied with the decentralized trial experience?”—this is where you uncover the real pain points, which you simply can’t measure with checkboxes alone.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add “Other” when you suspect that your options might not cover every experience or preference. Following up with an open question if “Other” is selected lets you gather novel insights or catch edge cases you hadn’t anticipated. These unexpected gems often influence meaningful changes in future trials.
Using NPS to measure participant advocacy in decentralized trials
NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a fast, standardized way to gauge how willing your participants are to recommend their decentralized trial experience. For clinical trial participants, NPS uncovers the overall perception of the trial, which can be especially telling for decentralized studies—where factors like technology, remote communication, and logistics all play a role in satisfaction.
By including an NPS question (such as “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend participating in a decentralized clinical trial to others?”), you get a single, actionable metric to compare across studies. You can use this NPS survey example for clinical trial participants right away.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are the secret weapon for unlocking context and clarity. Instead of settling for incomplete answers, automated AI followups give you the power (and convenience) to keep digging—without extra back-and-forth or manual chasing. Platforms like Specific handle these intelligently, automatically asking probing questions in real time based on the respondent’s previous reply and the survey context, just like an expert interviewer would. This leads to much richer insights and more natural conversations as described here.
Participant: “I found some parts confusing.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share which aspects of the decentralized process were most confusing for you?”
Without that prompt, you’d be left guessing. Automated followups mean less respondent frustration and more actionable feedback.
How many followups to ask? Typically, 2-3 followups are ideal—just enough to clarify points or explore the most important themes, but not so many that survey fatigue sets in. With Specific, you can set limits or allow users to skip to the next question once they’ve shared what you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: Each exchange feels like a real conversation, not an interrogation. That’s the magic of conversational surveys—participants feel heard, and the insights you get are on another level.
AI survey analysis: Worried about drowning in unstructured text? AI survey analysis tools make it easy to extract themes and summarize findings, no matter how much rich, open-ended data you collect. You can read about this process in detail here.
Automated probing is a new concept for many, but the best way to appreciate its impact is to try generating a survey and experience the difference for yourself.
How to craft prompts for AI-generated clinical trial participant questions
A great prompt leads to great questions. If you want to use ChatGPT or another AI survey generator, try asking:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Clinical Trial Participants survey about Decentralized Trial Experience.
But you’ll get much stronger results if you share context—who you are, your objectives, what you care about.
Example of more detailed prompt:
I am a research coordinator designing a survey for people who completed a decentralized clinical trial. My goal is to understand participant experience, highlight improvement areas, and identify common pain points. Generate 10 open-ended questions that help assess both practical and emotional aspects of the trial.
Next, ask the AI to organize output for faster editing:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
After reviewing categories, dive deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories “participant comfort” and “technology experience.”
This process sharpens your survey quickly and ensures you zero in on actionable questions.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is a new way of gathering feedback. Imagine having a natural, back-and-forth chat instead of filling out static forms. Each question adapts in real time based on the participant’s previous answers, giving a personal, responsive feel—while still collecting structured data and following a coherent path. Unlike traditional surveys, conversational surveys let you probe deeper and clarify in the moment, keeping people more engaged.
Let’s compare the experience:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Conversational Survey |
|---|---|
Build questions alone from scratch (can miss important angles) | Leverage expert-level AI to generate questions instantly, tailored to your goal |
Rigid format, limited to predefined answer options | Flexible, probes for deeper context with follow-up questions |
Difficult, time-consuming analysis of open-ended responses | Automated AI analysis and summaries—fast, structured insights |
Lower engagement, risk of incomplete answers | Conversational, adaptive, and much higher completion rates |
Why use AI for clinical trial participant surveys? Using an AI survey generator means you create better surveys in less time, get richer participant feedback, and can summarize everything automatically. You don’t need to be an expert to get expert-level questions—the AI does the heavy lifting. More about how to create a survey with this approach is explained here.
Specific is built for this. As a leader in conversational survey technology, we make it easy to build, launch, and analyze surveys—resulting in higher response quality and better decisions, especially for complex studies like decentralized clinical trials.
See this decentralized trial experience survey example now
Ready for better data and conversational feedback? See how easy it is to build a high-impact Clinical Trial Participants survey for decentralized experiences and unlock transformative insights in minutes with conversational AI surveys.