Best questions for patient survey about pediatric care experience

Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about pediatric care experience, plus tips for crafting them effectively. If you want to generate your own survey in seconds, Specific can help you build and customize a conversational survey that drives quality feedback.

The best open-ended questions for a patient survey about pediatric care experience

Open-ended questions let patients (and their families) share detailed personal feedback, in their own words. We rely on these to uncover what worked, where trust broke down, and what's truly meaningful to families. Quantitative scores matter, but the "why" behind those numbers is what helps us drive real change. Aim for open-ended questions when you want depth, stories, or insight into nuances—especially when experiences are emotional, complex, or specific to pediatric care needs.

Here are our top ten:

1. Can you describe your child’s most recent experience with our pediatric care team?

2. What aspects of care did you appreciate most during your child’s visit?

3. Were there any moments where you felt unsure or needed more information about your child’s treatment?

4. Can you share a time when a staff member made a positive difference in your child’s visit?

5. What suggestions do you have for improving communication between you and our healthcare team?

6. How did we address your concerns or questions about your child’s health during your visit?

7. Were there any challenges you faced while accessing our services or navigating your child’s care?

8. How would you describe your child’s comfort and emotional experience during the visit?

9. Can you tell us about any aspect of care that did not meet your expectations?

10. If you could change one thing about your most recent pediatric care experience, what would it be?

Research shows that family satisfaction can differ dramatically from one hospital to another. For instance, only 55% of families gave top ratings for "preventing mistakes and helping you report concerns," while "keeping you informed about your child's care in the emergency department" scored an impressive 84% top-box rating. Overall satisfaction averaged 73%, emphasizing the value of digging deeper into the ‘why’ behind these numbers [1].

The best single-select multiple-choice questions for pediatric care patient surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you need clear, quantifiable data or want to encourage response from people who may hesitate to write long answers. They make it easy to analyze trends, benchmark year-over-year, and spot friction points. It’s often helpful to combine these with open-ended follow-ups for richer insights:

Question: How would you rate the friendliness of our pediatric care staff?

• Very friendly

• Somewhat friendly

• Neutral

• Not friendly

Question: Did the care team explain your child’s treatment plan clearly?

• Yes, completely

• Partially

• No, not at all

• Not applicable

Question: What was the biggest barrier you encountered during your visit?

• Long wait time

• Lack of information

• Difficult facility navigation

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" Follow up when a respondent selects an answer that could mean many different things, or when you want to turn a score into actionable feedback. For instance, if someone answers “Partially” to the question about clear explanations, ask: “Could you tell us more about which part was unclear?” This transforms plain numbers into useful insight.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add "Other" when your choices may not capture every possibility. Follow-up probing here can surface new patterns—for example, someone might write in “language barrier” or “child afraid of medical equipment,” leading to new ideas for improvement.

Should you use an NPS question in pediatric care experience surveys?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question—"How likely are you to recommend our pediatric care to a friend or family member?"—remains one of the strongest predictors of overall satisfaction and loyalty. In pediatric dermatology, likelihood to recommend the care provider was highly correlated with overall satisfaction (r = .77, P < .001) [2]. NPS gives you a fast pulse on sentiment, and, when paired with a conversational follow-up (“What influenced your score?”), it helps you understand which factors drive promoters versus detractors.

If you want to try this, our NPS survey builder for pediatric patients is ready to go with the right framework and follow-up logic in place for this audience.

The power of follow-up questions

Automated follow-up questions turn basic surveys into powerful conversations. Instead of getting stuck with vague responses, you let the AI prompt for details—so patients and families feel heard, and you get the nuance you need. Specific’s AI-powered follow-ups work in real-time, asking smart clarifications and drilling down just as an expert would. This reduces the burden on your team, and prevents the classic “We had to email everyone back to clarify!” problem. Simply put, follow-ups close the feedback loop during the survey, not after.

• Patient: "It took a while before anyone told us what was happening."

• AI follow-up: "Could you share more about what information you were missing, or what you wish had been communicated sooner?"

How many followups to ask? Generally, two to three targeted follow-ups are enough for most questions. You want depth, not overwhelm. Specific lets you set this automatically, and respondents can always opt to skip if they've said what they want. Smart branching ensures you stop once you have what you need.

This makes it a conversational survey—the survey feels like a real exchange, not a cold form. People share more, and the data comes alive.

AI analysis for qualitative responses: Even with lots of open feedback, you can analyze responses using AI. AI quickly summarizes, finds sentiment trends, and pulls out actionable themes, so you aren’t buried in raw text.

These automated follow-up questions are game-changing—it's worth trying the experience yourself with a custom survey for your pediatric care setting.

Best prompts for ChatGPT and other AI for survey question generation

If you’re brainstorming your own questions (or iterating with the Specific AI survey generator), a simple prompt for any AI model is:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Patient survey about Pediatric Care Experience.

The more context you give, the better. Tell the AI about your goals, concerns, typical challenges, or the setting. Here's a richer prompt:

We want to understand parents’ real concerns about their child’s treatment and what makes them feel heard. Please suggest 10 questions for a pediatric care survey focused on communication, comfort, and overall trust.

Next, ask the AI to group the questions. Try this:

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

Once you review the categories (maybe “communication,” “wait times,” “staff attitude”), ask for more specific questions:

Generate 10 questions for the category "staff attitude."

This iterative approach, especially when combined with an AI survey builder, nails both breadth and depth for conversational surveys.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey collects feedback just like a human interview, not a checklist. Each question adapts to the person’s previous responses—with follow-ups, clarifications, and encouragement built in. This is what makes platforms like Specific stand out: surveys are dynamic, not one-size-fits-all.

Compared to traditional survey forms—often rigid, boring, and easy to quit—AI survey generators create surveys that are engaging, adaptive, and much faster to fill out. For example, AI-powered surveys achieve 70–90% completion rates, while standard survey completion rates are usually 10-30% [3]. With AI, the flow can adapt in real time to the respondent, reducing drop-off and driving better completion (and motivation to participate).

Why use AI for patient surveys? AI tools like Specific process feedback 60% faster and can analyze up to 1,000 responses per second. They even achieve 95% sentiment analysis accuracy, surfacing actionable insights from up to 70% of all feedback data [4]. This speed and clarity transforms routine data into genuine insight. If you want to build a conversational survey, see our guide on how to create a pediatric care survey that drives action.

Specific is designed for best-in-class, conversational survey experiences, making it seamless for both parents and care teams to share, interpret, and act on important feedback. If you want an AI survey example, or inspiration for your own pediatric care experience survey, it's simple to start with Specific.

See this pediatric care experience survey example now

Start collecting deeper insights from patients and families today—unlock smarter follow-ups, actionable analysis, and an engaging conversational survey experience with Specific’s AI survey builder.