Best questions for patient survey about advance care planning

Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about advance care planning, plus insider tips on creating them. If you want to build your own survey fast, you can generate one with Specific in seconds.

Best open-ended questions for patient survey about advance care planning

Open-ended questions are a goldmine for genuine patient insights—especially when you want to dig deeper into feelings, barriers, and needs. They shine when you aim to understand what’s behind the numbers or discover new themes in advance care planning conversations.

We’ve seen the numbers: only about 30% of Americans have completed advance directives, with Canadian rates even lower at just 13% [1][2]. That’s a huge gap—and open-ended questions help us understand why patients hold back, what matters to them, and how to address their concerns.

1. What does advance care planning mean to you personally?

2. Can you tell us about any past experiences that have influenced your thoughts on future healthcare decisions?

3. What worries or fears do you have about discussing your wishes for medical care?

4. In your ideal scenario, what would your medical care look like if you couldn’t speak for yourself?

5. What would make it easier for you to talk about advance care planning with your loved ones?

6. Have you ever put off thinking or talking about advance care planning? If so, why?

7. What information or support would help you feel more comfortable making an advance care plan?

8. How would you prefer conversations about advance care planning to begin—with a doctor, family member, or someone else?

9. Can you share anything that surprised you or changed your mind after learning more about advance care planning?

10. What, if anything, keeps you from documenting your healthcare preferences?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for patient survey about advance care planning

Single-select multiple-choice questions are your best friend for quantifying attitudes, surfacing trends, or warming up patients who might be anxious about open conversations. They lower the barrier to response by providing focused options, and they can launch follow-up discussions if needed.

Question: Have you created an advance care plan or advance directive?

• Yes

• No, but I plan to

• No, and I’m not sure if I will

• No, I do not want to

• Other

Question: What do you see as the biggest barrier to talking about advance care planning?

• Lack of information

• Not sure how to start the conversation

• I don’t want to think about it

• No time

• Other

Question: Who would you feel most comfortable discussing advance care planning with?

• My family

• My doctor or nurse

• A social worker

• No one—I prefer not to discuss it

• Other

When to followup with "why?" After a respondent selects a choice, especially one indicating uncertainty, reluctance, or a challenge, ask “why?” in a follow-up. For example, if someone chooses “No, I do not want to,” a follow-up might be, “Can you share a bit more about what makes you hesitant?” You’ll uncover deeper motivations or fears that static surveys miss.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Use “Other” whenever answer options can’t capture every possible response. If someone selects “Other,” a follow-up question lets them explain in their own words—often revealing unique barriers or opportunities you’d never anticipate on your own.

NPS and patient surveys: using Net Promoter Score for advance care planning

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for customer experience—it’s a smart, efficient way to measure patient loyalty and advocacy, even in sensitive healthcare contexts. With so many patients and even healthcare professionals unsure or uncomfortable discussing advance care planning (only around one-third of Canadian doctors and nurses feel at ease initiating these discussions [3]), NPS helps benchmark patient trust and satisfaction with end-of-life conversations or education initiatives.

If you want to instantly set up an NPS survey tailored for this topic, Specific lets you auto-create one specifically for patients and advance care planning.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are what separate a good survey from a genuinely conversational survey. They uncover true motives, clarify vague responses, and unlock richer stories—especially in emotionally complex domains like advance care planning.

Specific’s AI uses real-time context and previous answers to generate smart, relevant follow-ups. This means you get full, nuanced insights without chasing respondents by email or missing key details. Automated follow-ups take the pressure off your team while still capturing the conversation—just like a skilled interviewer would.

• Patient: "I haven’t thought about it much."

• AI follow-up: "Is there something specific that’s kept you from thinking about advance care planning so far?"

Without that follow-up, we might never learn if the patient was unaware, afraid to talk about it, or simply procrastinating.

How many followups to ask? Two to three follow-ups are usually enough to achieve clarity, but always enable the ability to skip if the respondent’s already provided what you need. Specific allows you to fine-tune this, striking the right balance between engagement and depth.

This makes it a conversational survey: It’s an experience—more like talking to a thoughtful expert than clicking through a form. This conversational flow helps patients feel heard.

AI-powered survey analysis, response summaries, and faster insights: Tools like Specific’s AI survey analysis make it easy to analyze large amounts of open-text feedback. AI summaries highlight key themes so you never lose the value of qualitative data—it’s all there, fast and organized.

Automated follow-up questions are still a new concept for many. Try generating a survey with Specific’s survey generator and see just how powerful and natural these conversations can feel.

How to craft prompts for AI to generate survey questions

The better your prompt, the smarter your AI-generated survey. Start with something direct like:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Patient survey about Advance Care Planning.

Adding context will improve results. For example:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Patient survey about Advance Care Planning. The patients are mostly over 60, many haven’t completed an advance directive, and we want to uncover barriers and anxieties.

Once you have a draft, ask the AI to organize and sharpen your questions:

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

Then drill deeper into the areas you care about most:

Generate 10 questions for categories “Barriers to planning” and “Preferred communication methods”.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys don’t feel like surveys—they feel like a real, dynamic chat. With platforms like Specific’s AI survey builder, creating a smooth, custom experience takes far less time and delivers richer feedback than any traditional form-based survey could.

Why use AI for patient surveys? Applying AI to survey creation and analysis is a gamechanger for healthcare teams. You reduce staff burden, increase data quality, and finally get context-rich feedback—even from those who are hesitant to open up. AI survey example flows show how you can start with a preset or prompt, then tweak everything in chat using the AI survey editor if needed.

The result? A best-in-class conversational survey experience that’s enjoyable for patients, efficient for teams, and uncovers actionable insights. For hands-on steps, see our guide on how to create a patient survey about advance care planning.

See this Advance Care Planning survey example now

Start collecting honest, nuanced feedback—Specific gives you everything to deliver natural, AI-powered conversations, follow-ups, and instant analysis tailored to your patient needs. Don’t miss out on true insights.