Best questions for patient survey about cultural sensitivity

Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about cultural sensitivity, plus tips to make them truly effective. If you want to build a comprehensive, conversational survey in seconds, you can generate your own with Specific—it’s effortless.

Best open-ended questions for patient survey about cultural sensitivity

Open-ended questions let patients express their experiences and concerns freely, offering nuanced, in-depth insights. They’re particularly valuable for uncovering how patients truly feel about interactions shaped by cultural background or beliefs. Use them when you need stories, examples, or details—especially for understanding context or identifying improvement areas. The evidence is clear: culturally sensitive care significantly enhances both satisfaction and treatment adherence—for instance, patient satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between perceived cultural sensitivity and adherence, explaining 10% of the variance in adherence behaviors. [1]

1. Can you share an experience where your cultural background influenced your care or communication with our healthcare staff?

2. What aspects of your visit made you feel respected and understood in regard to your culture or beliefs?

3. Were there any times you felt your cultural needs weren’t fully recognized or addressed? Please explain.

4. How could our staff improve their approach to caring for patients from diverse backgrounds?

5. In what ways do you prefer information about your health or treatment to be explained or delivered, considering your cultural context?

6. Are there cultural practices or traditions important to you during healthcare visits that we should know about?

7. Describe any barriers you’ve experienced in discussing your health concerns due to cultural or language differences.

8. What could make our environment feel more welcoming and inclusive to you and your community?

9. Have you encountered situations where staff showed cultural awareness that positively impacted your care? Please describe.

10. Is there anything else you want to share about how cultural sensitivity could be improved in our healthcare practice?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for patient survey about cultural sensitivity

Single-select multiple-choice questions help you quantify key attitudes or experiences, especially when you want to identify trends or start a structured conversation. They’re easy for patients to answer, lowering barriers and sometimes encouraging more honest participation. You can follow up for details based on someone’s selected answer. For cultural sensitivity surveys, this structure can highlight areas for immediate improvement.

Question: During your visit, how respected did you feel regarding your cultural background?

• Very respected

• Somewhat respected

• Neutral

• Somewhat disrespected

• Very disrespected

Question: Did you feel comfortable expressing cultural preferences to your healthcare provider?

• Yes, always

• Yes, sometimes

• No, rarely

• No, never

Question: What would most improve our cultural sensitivity?

• More staff training

• Better interpreter services

• More culturally reflective materials

• Other

When to follow up with “why?” It’s smart to trigger a follow-up “why?” when you spot strong opinions (like “very disrespected” or “never comfortable”). These follow-ups reveal the “story behind the score”—for example, asking, “Can you share what made you feel this way?” after someone selects “No, never” opens the door to actionable feedback and real stories for improvement plans.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? “Other” gives voice to unique perspectives not listed in your main options. Sometimes what patients name here is the surprise insight that leads to real change—especially if your current categories miss an emerging need. Follow up on “Other” by inviting them to specify what they’d do differently.

NPS-type question for patient survey about cultural sensitivity

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful, standardized way to measure overall experience and loyalty—it works just as well for tracking how cultural sensitivity influences patient trust and word-of-mouth. By asking patients how likely they are to recommend your practice based on cultural consideration, you get a clear benchmark over time. If you decide to try it, Specific makes it easy to create an NPS survey for this exact use case.

NPS is especially valuable when you want a single number you can compare across locations, teams, or after new cultural sensitivity initiatives. In medical research, it's been shown that increased cultural sensitivity not only improves satisfaction, but also correlates with higher adherence and positive patient behaviors. [2]

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions turn static surveys into dynamic conversations. They’re a game changer: instead of leaving meaning up in the air, you clarify, dig deeper, and truly “get” what patients are telling you. You can read a deep dive into automated follow-up questions here.

Specific’s AI follows up in real time—just like a skilled interviewer would—by reading the patient’s response, looking for interesting or unclear details, and probing for more context. This results in richer feedback and fewer misunderstandings, while cutting back-and-forth email ping-pong to a minimum. It makes everything far more efficient for healthcare teams.

• Patient: “I didn’t feel heard.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you explain which interaction made you feel this way or describe what happened?”

• Patient: “Interpreter service wasn’t enough.”

• AI follow-up: “What language support would have made your visit more comfortable?”

How many follow-ups to ask? Usually, 2–3 well-targeted follow-up questions are more than enough to reach clarity—especially if you let the survey skip ahead once you get what you need. Specific allows you to tune this setting for maximum control, so patients aren’t overwhelmed.

This makes it a conversational survey: The experience flows like a supportive conversation, not a cold checklist. Patients respond with candor, and you get the unfiltered stories you need to make care truly culturally sensitive.

AI analysis of open-ended responses: Even if follow-ups generate lots of unstructured context, analyzing it is simple. AI survey response analysis lets you summarize, group, and query results in seconds—no need to wade through walls of text unless you want to.

Try generating a survey (and see automated followups in action): The “lightbulb” moment is running a survey with dynamic follow-ups—new insights pop up that you’d never get from a rigid, one-shot form.

How to write a ChatGPT prompt to get great survey questions for patients about cultural sensitivity

If you want to use ChatGPT or another AI to brainstorm question ideas, good prompting matters. Start with something like this for a quick list:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for patient survey about cultural sensitivity.

You’ll get better results by adding specifics: tell AI about your healthcare environment, types of patients, goals (like improving satisfaction or compliance), and anything that sets your context apart.

We are a community health clinic serving a diverse patient base, and we want to ensure every patient’s cultural needs are respected. Our goal is to understand gaps and build lasting trust. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a patient survey focused on cultural sensitivity.

Once you have raw questions, prompt the AI to organize them so you see coverage and gaps:

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

Finally, zoom in on the categories that matter most—maybe “Communication Preferences” or “Staff Attitudes”—and ask for more depth:

Generate 10 questions for the category “Staff Attitudes toward Diversity.”

This structured, iterative process turns vague prompts into fully tailored, actionable survey drafts much faster.

What is a conversational survey—and why use an AI survey generator for patient cultural sensitivity?

Conversational surveys mimic how humans actually talk. Patients engage with open-ended and closed questions, clarifying or elaborating as the survey “listens” and follows up based on context and meaning.

Compared to manual survey creation, AI survey generators like Specific accelerate the process, eliminate oversight or question bias, and suggest best practices automatically. The difference is major:

Why use AI for patient surveys? You get deeper, more candid responses—patients feel “heard” rather than interrogated, and you gather rich perspective with far less effort. Recent research shows that cultural sensitivity training and focus increase open-mindedness and ultimately improve patient adherence to care recommendations—without higher costs. [3]

For best-in-class user experience, Specific’s conversational survey builder brings all of this together: the survey adapts naturally, feedback flows smoothly, and everybody wins. If you want practical, step-by-step guidance, check our complete guide on how to create a patient survey about cultural sensitivity.

See this cultural sensitivity survey example now

Uncover real, honest feedback from your patients with a conversational survey that adapts to their unique experiences—see what you can learn, and create your own in just a minute.