Here are some of the best questions for an ex-cult member survey about anxiety symptoms, plus practical tips on how to craft survey questions that truly uncover what matters. With Specific, you can build such a survey in seconds—no need to start from scratch.
Best open-ended questions for ex-cult member survey about anxiety symptoms
Open-ended questions help you dig deeper and get nuanced responses. They're ideal for understanding personal experiences and emotions—especially on topics as sensitive as anxiety symptoms for ex-cult members. Let’s get straight to it: here are ten open-ended questions we recommend, grounded in research and best practices.
Can you describe how your anxiety symptoms have changed since leaving the group?
What triggers anxiety for you most frequently in everyday life after your experience?
Have you found specific situations or environments that worsen your anxiety? Please explain.
How do you usually cope with anxious feelings or thoughts?
What kinds of support have you sought (or not sought) since leaving the group?
Can you share a recent situation where anxiety made daily life difficult?
Are there particular memories or teachings from the group that still cause you anxiety?
What has been helpful (or unhelpful) in managing your anxiety since leaving?
How has anxiety affected your relationships with friends or family?
When do you feel most hopeful or empowered in dealing with your anxiety symptoms?
Open questions invite detailed, personal insight. They’re crucial because according to one study, 83% of ex-cult members report experiencing anxiety after leaving their group, making tailored qualitative inputs invaluable for understanding their challenges [1].
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for ex-cult member survey about anxiety symptoms
Single-select multiple-choice questions make it easier to quantify experiences or identify common themes, especially helpful if you want structured data. They’re also great for opening up the conversation—respondents may find it less overwhelming to pick an option, which you can then probe with follow-ups.
Question: How often do you currently experience anxiety symptoms?
Daily
Several times a week
Once a week or less
Rarely
Question: Which of the following best describes your main source of anxiety since leaving the group?
Social situations
Flashbacks or memories
Uncertainty about the future
Lack of support network
Other
Question: Have you ever sought professional help for your anxiety symptoms?
Yes, regularly
Yes, occasionally
No, but I’m considering it
No, not at all
When to follow up with "why?" When someone selects a response that could mean several things or could benefit from explanation (such as “Other” or “No, but I’m considering it”), it's a perfect moment to ask "why?" as a follow-up. For example, if someone chooses “No, but I’m considering it” for therapy, a follow-up like, “Can you tell us more about what influences your decision?” can offer vital context and actionable insight.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include “Other” when you want to allow for unexpected or nuanced experiences not covered by your list. Following up on “Other” can uncover insights that multiple-choice options might miss, enriching your understanding and helping refine future surveys.
NPS question for assessing overall anxiety impact
NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a powerful standardized question—“On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this experience/support to another ex-cult member struggling with anxiety?” Using NPS here can reveal overall satisfaction with support resources or recovery communities, while follow-ups clarify specific pain points or bright spots. You can quickly generate an NPS survey designed for ex-cult members dealing with anxiety symptoms in just one click.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are the magic ingredient in conversational surveys, unlocking more detailed, honest, and context-rich responses. Studies confirm that AI-powered chatbots asking conversational follow-up questions receive higher engagement and better quality responses compared to standard forms [4]. With Specific’s automatic AI follow-up questions feature, smart probes happen in real time—like an expert interviewer reading between the lines—gathering the “why” and “how” behind every answer.
For example, imagine not using follow-ups:
Ex-cult member: “I feel anxious in social settings.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share what specifically about social settings triggers your anxiety?”
Without that follow-up, you’d only know they feel anxious in social settings—not what really causes it, or how you could help.
How many followups to ask? In general, asking 2-3 follow-ups is optimal. More can feel tiring, fewer can leave details on the table. With Specific, you can set the desired follow-up depth and even let respondents skip follow-ups once you have what you need—keeping your survey respectful and efficient.
This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a rigid form, the experience feels dynamic—like a real conversation, tailored to the respondent’s story.
AI survey analysis and response summaries: Even if you collect lots of unstructured text, you can easily analyze all responses using AI (see our guide). The result: clarity instead of chaos, making reporting and action-taking a breeze.
These automated follow-up questions are a game-changer—try generating a survey and witness how they transform feedback collection.
How to compose prompts for GPT to generate survey questions about anxiety symptoms
Creating strong survey questions with ChatGPT or any GPT-based system is all about crafting clear prompts. Here’s how you can do it:
Start with a basic prompt for open-ended questions, such as:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for ex-cult member survey about anxiety symptoms.
Want even better results? Give the AI more context about you, your mission, and your research goal. Example:
I’m a mental health researcher designing a survey for former cult members to understand their anxiety symptoms post-exit. Suggest 10 nuanced, trauma-informed, open-ended questions to uncover emotional triggers and coping methods.
Once you’ve collected some questions, use another prompt to organize them and identify themes:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then you can focus by category. Example:
Generate 10 questions for the category “coping strategies since leaving the group”.
This targeted approach ensures you’re not just asking generic questions, but building surveys that resonate with the experiences of ex-cult members.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys—like those Specific enables—turn surveys into a dynamic, chat-like experience. Instead of static forms, questions flow naturally, follow-ups clarify, and participants feel heard. This approach drives richer, more honest insight, particularly on deeply personal topics like anxiety symptoms after leaving a cult.
How does this differ from manual survey creation? Let’s compare:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Conversational Survey |
|---|---|
Slow, requires lots of manual design | Fast, built in minutes using natural language prompts |
Static questions, no probing | Dynamic real-time follow-ups with AI |
Collected data is hard to analyze | Qualitative insights auto-summarized by AI |
Participants may lose interest | Interactive, keeps participants more engaged |
Why use AI for ex-cult member surveys? AI survey builders, like Specific, enable you to design tailored, trauma-sensitive questions informed by the latest research. They empower you to collect, clarify, and analyze complex feedback efficiently—something vital in such a sensitive context. Check our practical guide to create a survey for ex-cult members about anxiety symptoms for a step-by-step walkthrough.
In short: if you want the best possible AI survey example for anxiety symptoms, using a platform dedicated to conversational surveys delivers a superior respondent and creator experience. With Specific, this best-in-class approach makes feedback collection smooth, safe, and insightful—no matter where your respondents are.
See this anxiety symptoms survey example now
Discover how easy it is to capture deep, actionable insights from ex-cult members by seeing a real conversational survey in action—don’t wait, experience first-hand the difference AI-powered follow-ups and conversational questions make.