Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about pain management, and also tips on how to create them. If you want to build an engaging conversational survey fast, you can easily generate your own with Specific.
The best open-ended questions for a patient survey about pain management
Open-ended questions let patients describe their pain and experiences in their own words—this is where you can discover details that checkboxes alone just can’t capture. Especially in pain management surveys, open-ended formats help reveal the true impact of pain, the effectiveness of treatments, and any barriers to proper care. This qualitative approach reflects why, despite 52.9% of hospitalized patients reporting pain, over 87% still expressed satisfaction with management—a gap that's hard to explain with numbers alone. [2]
Here are 10 open-ended questions we know work well with patients discussing pain management:
Can you describe the type of pain you experience (e.g., sharp, dull, throbbing)?
What activities or times of day make your pain feel worse or better?
How does your pain impact your daily life, such as sleep, mobility, or mood?
Have you noticed any patterns or triggers related to your pain?
What pain management strategies have you tried, and what was most or least helpful?
Are there any side effects or concerns related to your pain treatments?
What would make pain management feel more supportive or effective for you?
If you could change one thing about your current pain management plan, what would it be?
Have you discussed your pain with your care team? If so, how did that conversation go?
Is there anything else you want to share about how pain management could be improved for you?
Use these to get beyond surface-level answers and discover real opportunities for better patient care.
The best single-select multiple-choice questions for a patient survey about pain management
Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you want to quantify specific experiences, identify trends quickly, or help respondents who may struggle to express complex feelings in long-form text. These questions lower the barrier for response—even for patients in pain—and let you see what’s most common at a glance. After the initial choice, you can open a dialogue for deeper insight using follow-ups or open-ended questions.
Question: How would you rate your average pain over the last week?
Mild (1–3)
Moderate (4–6)
Severe (7–10)
Question: Which pain management method do you use most often?
Prescription medication
Over-the-counter medication
Physical therapy
Other
Question: Are you satisfied with the current level of communication from your care team about pain management options?
Yes
No
Not sure
When to follow up with "why?" Use a "why" follow-up when a response is negative, very positive, or ambiguous—this helps surface root causes and actionable details. For example: If someone answers “No” to being satisfied with communication, ask: “Why do you feel the communication isn’t meeting your needs?” This is where you uncover the blocker or specific pain point.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Sometimes patient experiences don’t fit neatly into pre-made categories—adding “Other” with a follow-up text box unlocks unexpected insight or new vocabularies that structured questions miss. You can learn about alternative therapies, off-label treatments, or even challenges with diagnosis.
Should you include a NPS-style question in patient pain management surveys?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is widely used to measure loyalty and satisfaction. In pain management, using an NPS-style question like “How likely are you to recommend our pain management services to others?” offers a high-level metric of patient sentiment and care quality. This can reveal gaps between patient and provider perspectives—even as one study found 19% of physicians in one region were dissatisfied with pain control, compared to only 8% of patients. [3] These discrepancies can guide where to dig deeper with follow-up questions.
For a ready-to-launch version, you can generate an NPS survey customized for pain management patients.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are what turn an ordinary patient survey into a two-way, context-rich conversation. With Specific’s automatic follow-up question feature, AI analyzes each response in real time and asks clarifying, targeted questions just like a seasoned interviewer. This means you get the story behind every answer—complete context, fewer ambiguities, and richer data. AI-powered follow-ups also save countless hours that teams often waste chasing unclear responses by email.
Patient: “I use medication, but it doesn’t help much.”
AI follow-up: “Can you tell us more about which medications you’ve tried and why you feel they aren’t effective?”
How many follow-ups to ask?
Usually, 2–3 well-placed follow-up questions are enough—you don’t want to fatigue patients, but you do want clarity. With Specific, you can set a maximum to keep the experience smooth and allow patients to skip further follow-ups if their answer is already clear.
This makes it a conversational survey. Because every reply can spark further helpful questions, each survey becomes a personalized chat instead of a cold form.
AI survey analysis: Don’t worry about getting swamped by all that rich, unstructured input. With AI-powered survey response analysis, you can summarize, segment, and chat with the data to find critical themes fast—even with hundreds of long-form answers.
Automated follow-up questions might feel new, but they really do change the game. Try generating a survey with built-in AI follow-ups to see how natural it can feel for both you and your patients.
How to compose ChatGPT prompts for great pain management survey questions
You can leverage AI like ChatGPT to generate survey questions quickly. Start with a broad prompt:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a patient survey about pain management.
But the more context AI has, the better the results. For improved outcomes, share a bit about your goals:
I work in an outpatient clinic and want to improve our pain management strategies for post-surgical patients. Please generate 10 open-ended questions to uncover patients’ concerns and suggestions regarding pain control during recovery.
Once you have questions, get the AI to organize them:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Finally, hone in on categories where you most need detail:
Generate 10 questions for categories “Treatment Effectiveness” and “Communication with Care Team.”
This iterative approach lets you quickly drill down to the most impactful survey questions for your patient group.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys, especially those driven by AI, turn traditional survey-taking into an interactive dialogue. Rather than just clicking boxes or typing into static forms, patients have a back-and-forth chat—much like texting with a real person. This engages even busy or skeptical patients, driving up completion rates and quality of response. In a study with 600 participants, chatbot-driven surveys outperformed regular online forms in both the richness and clarity of feedback. [5]
Here’s why this is transformative compared to manual survey building:
Manual surveys | AI-generated conversational surveys |
|---|---|
Static forms—limited follow-up | Dynamic chat—smart follow-ups and clarifying questions |
Manual analysis required | AI summarizes responses and extracts insights instantly |
Time-consuming to build or edit | Just describe what you want—the AI creates or updates questions in seconds |
Higher drop-off, lower completion | Chat-like experience increases completion rates and satisfaction |
Why use AI for patient surveys?
AI-powered survey tools, like Specific, interpret each open-ended answer in real time using natural language processing (NLP). This not only reveals trends and actionable insights but can actually improve quality of care by catching what traditional surveys miss. With an AI survey example, you’ll see how fluid and responsive the entire feedback loop can be. Plus, Specific’s experience is designed for both creators and respondents; you just ask AI for help, and everything from question editing to launch feels seamless.
Want tips on survey creation? Here’s a detailed guide to building a patient pain management survey step-by-step.
See this pain management survey example now
Put these questions to work and capture the nuanced, actionable feedback you need—start your own expert-designed conversational survey and see how it can transform your understanding of patient pain management.