Best questions for ex-cult member survey about depression symptoms

Here are some of the best questions for an ex-cult member survey about depression symptoms, plus tips on crafting them. You can instantly generate your own survey using Specific, which makes building tailored, conversational surveys incredibly fast and easy.

The best open-ended questions for ex-cult member survey about depression symptoms

Open-ended questions invite ex-cult members to share their unique stories and describe their symptoms in their own words—capturing nuances that checkboxes alone will miss. Use them when you want to understand lived experience, context, and impact, not just numbers.

1. Can you describe how leaving the cult has affected your mood or emotional well-being?

2. What symptoms of depression, if any, have you noticed since your transition out?

3. How do your feelings of sadness or hopelessness compare to your experiences before leaving?

4. Can you recall times when your motivation or energy has changed significantly?

5. How have your sleep patterns changed since leaving?

6. Are there particular thoughts or beliefs from your time in the group that impact your current mental health?

7. What coping strategies have you found helpful for sadness or depression, if any?

8. Have you sought professional mental health support? If so, what helped or didn’t help?

9. In your own words, how would you describe your day-to-day mental health now?

10. Is there anything else you wish people understood about the emotional aftermath of leaving a high-control group?

AI-powered surveys process nuanced, open-text responses in minutes, surfacing key patterns and trends for faster action—unlike traditional forms, which can take weeks to analyze manually. This is critical when supporting vulnerable groups, as timely insights can make a difference. [2]

The best single-select multiple-choice questions for ex-cult member survey about depression symptoms

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect for quantifying the prevalence or severity of symptoms and making it easy for people to engage—especially if they might not want to write out every thought. They're also a great way to open a conversation, especially in a conversational survey: respondents pick an option, and you (or the AI) can follow up to explore the “why” in detail.

Question: Over the past two weeks, how often have you felt down, depressed, or hopeless?

• Nearly every day

• More than half the days

• Several days

• Not at all

Question: Since leaving, would you say your sleep quality is:

• Much worse than before

• Slightly worse than before

• About the same

• Better than before

• Other

Question: Have you talked to anyone about your symptoms of depression?

• Yes, a mental health professional

• Yes, friends or family

• No, but I want to

• No

When to follow up with "why?" Follow up whenever a simple choice might hide a deeper story. For example, if someone selects “Much worse than before” about sleep, asking “Why is that? What’s changed for you?” helps surface triggers or context you’d otherwise miss.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? “Other” ensures you capture unexpected realities. If someone picks “Other” and explains, follow-ups can reveal issues you hadn’t considered, leading to richer and more actionable insights.

NPS survey for ex-cult member about depression symptoms

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used method to measure overall satisfaction or likelihood to recommend—but it adapts well to mental health surveys, too. In this context, it could surface how supported or hopeful ex-cult members feel post-transition. For example: “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend support resources to other ex-cult members struggling with depression symptoms?” Follow-up probing unpacks why people feel confident (or not) in these resources. Try an NPS question in your own survey now.

The power of follow-up questions

Surveying ex-cult members about depression symptoms is delicate work—where one unclear answer can make or break the value of your insights. With automated AI follow-up questions, like those found in Specific’s survey system, you’re not just getting one-shot answers. The AI asks targeted follow-ups in real time, making the survey feel like a real conversation while surfacing buried pain points or clarifying ambiguity, all without the drain of back-and-forth emails.

• Ex-cult member: “My sleep is all over the place.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you describe what you mean? For instance, are you finding it hard to fall asleep, waking often, or sleeping too much?”

How many followups to ask? In practice, 2-3 follow-ups per question are enough. Specific lets you set the max number or automatically advance once a clear answer is reached. This keeps conversations engaging, not exhausting.

This makes it a conversational survey: The survey flows naturally from question to clarification to insight—so answers are deeper, and people feel genuinely heard.

AI survey response analysis is easy thanks to GPT-powered tools. Don’t worry about sifting through thousands of open-text blocks—simply analyze responses with AI, which highlights common themes and surfaces meaningful trends, no matter how messy the data.

This automated approach is new—just generate your own survey with followups and experience the difference.

How to prompt GPTs to generate great ex-cult member depression survey questions

If you like to co-create or iterate with ChatGPT, start with a direct request. You can use:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for ex-cult member survey about depression symptoms.

But, you’ll get better results if you give more context. Add details about your audience, your goals, and tone:

I’m designing a conversational survey for ex-cult members to understand their experience with depression symptoms after leaving. Please suggest 10 open-ended questions that are trauma-informed, sensitive, and encourage honest reflection.

Next, organize your questions for clarity:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Once you have categories (e.g., “Emotional Changes”, “Coping Strategies”), focus further:

Generate 10 questions for Emotions and Coping Strategies.

What is a conversational survey and why use AI survey generators?

Conversational surveys offer something traditional forms never could—a natural, real-time dialogue that adapts to each person’s answers. When you use an AI survey generator like Specific, you get:

• Faster survey creation by describing what you want in plain language.

• Engaging, mobile-friendly questionnaires optimized for honest, thoughtful responses.

• Automatic follow-up questions to clarify, go deeper, and capture insights in context—just like a human interviewer.

• AI-powered analysis that summarizes and connects the dots for you, saving hours or even weeks of manual work.

Why use AI for ex-cult member surveys? Apart from easier creation and better user experience, AI technology ensures no one’s experience falls through the cracks. You don’t have to worry about missing delicate signals; AI summarizes and organizes even subtle, complex experiences, surfacing support needs much faster.

Specific sets the standard for conversational survey UX—making giving and collecting feedback seamless, friction-free, and more human for both creators and respondents. Learn more in our step-by-step guide on building an ex-cult depression symptoms survey.

See this depression symptoms survey example now

Ready to understand real experiences from ex-cult members and uncover what really matters? Create your own conversational AI survey with deep, actionable insights—faster and easier than ever before.