Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about medication adherence, plus quick tips for getting actionable insights. You can generate a tailored survey with Specific in seconds, saving you time and capturing richer data from patients.
Best open-ended questions for patient survey about medication adherence
Open-ended questions spark honest, detailed feedback—especially useful when you want to dig into lived experiences, motivations, or challenges. It's the go-to style when you’re looking to understand the “why” behind patients’ behavior, outside of narrow, quantifiable answers.
Can you describe your daily routine when it comes to taking your medication?
What challenges, if any, do you face when remembering to take your medication as prescribed?
How do you feel about the medications you've been prescribed?
What would make it easier for you to remember to take your medication?
Have you ever missed a dose? If so, what was the main reason?
What kind of support would help you stay on top of your medication schedule?
Can you recall a time when taking your medication felt especially difficult?
What concerns do you have (if any) about possible medication side effects?
How do you keep track of your medication refills?
If you could change anything about your current medication regimen, what would it be?
Open-ended responses can reveal hidden patterns, like forgetfulness—found to influence over 39% of adherence failures globally [1]. You get context and depth behind the numbers.
Best single-select multiple-choice questions for patient survey about medication adherence
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you need to quantify behavior or preferences, and they're great for breaking the ice. For patients, it’s sometimes easier to start with a short list of answers than an open text box. Use them to establish broad trends, then deploy open or follow-up questions for nuance.
Question: How often do you forget to take your medication?
Almost never
Once or twice a month
Once or twice a week
Daily
Question: What is the biggest challenge you face in sticking to your medication schedule?
Forgetting
Side effects
Cost
Not understanding instructions
Other
Question: How do you usually remember to take your medication?
Set alarms or reminders
Use a pill organizer
Rely on routine
Help from caregiver
I don’t have a specific method
When to followup with "why?" Whenever a patient selects an answer that could have multiple meanings or root causes, follow up with “why?” For example, if someone answers “Forgetting” as their main challenge, it opens the door to explore what’s making them forget—busy schedules, cognitive issues, or lack of routine. A smart followup turns a superficial stat into a real solution.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always include an “Other” option when you suspect your list isn’t exhaustive. This gives patients room to share unique reasons, and your followup can uncover fresh, actionable insights you hadn’t considered. Sometimes, these open the biggest opportunities for improvement.
NPS question for patient survey about medication adherence
NPS—Net Promoter Score—is traditionally used to measure loyalty or satisfaction, but it’s increasingly valuable for understanding patient attitudes toward medication adherence. In this context, it measures both satisfaction and likelihood to recommend medication routines to peers, signaling overall engagement and trust.
If you’re considering benchmarking or want a single score to track improvement, adding an NPS question makes sense. It sits neatly between quantitative and qualitative approaches—great as a pulse check.
Want to try it? Use Specific’s NPS survey generator for patient medication adherence to get started fast.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are where conversational surveys truly shine. With the help of tools like Specific, you can automatically ask tailored follow-up questions based on each patient’s previous response and context—just like a skilled interviewer in a real conversation. It’s the feature that transforms a boring form into a flexible dialogue, leading to richer and more relevant data. If you want the full technical breakdown, check out this deep-dive on automatic AI follow-up questions.
Patient: "Sometimes I just forget."
AI follow-up: "Could you share what usually causes you to forget? For example, is it due to a busy schedule or something else?"
How many followups to ask? Two to three well-crafted followup questions are usually enough. You can always configure your survey to automatically skip ahead once you collect the insight you wanted—Specific supports this smart branching, striking a balance between depth and brevity.
This makes it a conversational survey instead of a one-way questionnaire. Patients are more likely to engage, clarify, and actually enjoy the process.
AI survey analysis—With the number of open text responses you’ll get, don’t sweat the data crunching. AI-powered analysis tools (like the analysis feature in Specific) make exploring results effortless, surfacing patterns and themes that you'd otherwise miss in a sea of text.
These smart follow-ups are still new for most, so I recommend you try generating a patient survey yourself to see just how conversational and insightful the feedback collection becomes.
How to write great prompts for ChatGPT to generate questions
If you’d rather come up with your own survey questions using an AI assistant like ChatGPT, prompts matter. Try starting simple:
Use this as your foundation:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for patient survey about medication adherence.
But you’ll get even better results if you give the AI more context. For example:
You're a healthcare researcher aiming to improve medication adherence among patients with chronic conditions. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that reveal daily challenges, support needs, and attitudes toward current routines, suitable for a conversational survey.
Next, to sharpen the focus, prompt the AI:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, choose the categories that matter most—say “daily challenges” or “support needs”—and go deeper:
Generate 10 questions for the "daily challenges" and "support needs" categories.
This approach keeps your question set targeted and actionable.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is exactly what it sounds like: a survey that unfolds as an interactive dialogue, rather than a static form. The experience mimics a natural chat between patient and provider, powered by an AI that’s trained to ask good questions, clarify answers, and probe for detail when needed.
Traditional surveys—think endless grids and checkboxes—don’t leave room for nuance or unexpected responses. AI-generated surveys, especially through a platform like Specific, feel adaptive and engaging. Instead of scanning a form, the patient is an active participant in a real conversation.
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Survey |
|---|---|
Slow, often repetitive setup | Survey generated instantly from a prompt |
Rigid, hard to edit “on the fly” | Editable conversationally—just tell the AI your changes |
No real-time follow-ups | Automated, smart follow-ups with contextual probing |
Difficult to analyze open-ended data | Instant AI summaries and insights from text responses |
Why use AI for patient surveys? Because non-adherence is a complex, costly issue—affecting up to 50% of chronic patients [1], leading to avoidable hospitalizations and even deaths [2]. You need tools that dig deeper and surface not just the “what” but the “why.” AI survey generation with Specific accelerates setup, collects better data with less friction, and gives you direct access to meaningful insights—without manual wrangling.
If you want a hands-on guide, I recommend our article on how to create a patient survey about medication adherence.
Specific is built for a best-in-class experience for conversational surveys—making it easy and engaging for both you and your patients to collect critical feedback quickly.
See this medication adherence survey example now
See firsthand how conversational, AI-powered surveys bring out the best responses from patients and unlock insights that help everyone—from practitioners to researchers—make a real difference. Create your own survey and elevate the feedback process today.