This article will guide you on how to create a Clinical Trial Participants survey about Adverse Events Reporting. We’ll show how you can build such a survey in seconds—just generate a ready-to-launch survey with Specific, no expertise required.
Steps to create a survey for Clinical Trial Participants about Adverse Events Reporting
If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific. Here’s how easy it is to use AI to create actionable, conversational surveys:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You honestly don’t even need to read further—Specific handles your survey end-to-end. The AI creates questions with expert knowledge and, crucially, will probe respondents with personalized follow-up questions to gather deeper insights. If you want to explore more or learn how it works, read on.
Why collecting feedback about adverse events matters
Making it easy for clinical trial participants to report adverse events is not just a regulatory box to check—we know it’s essential for real-world patient safety and trial data integrity. Yet, the numbers show a troubling gap: less than 10% of all adverse events are actually reported in trials, with some sources indicating the true figure may be below 5% [1]. This underreporting means risks go unnoticed, and potentially unsafe treatments slip through the cracks.
If you’re not running these AE feedback surveys, you’re missing out on:
More comprehensive safety data: when trial reports miss adverse events, both sponsors and participants stay in the dark.
Alignment with regulatory best practices: The European Medicines Agency (EMA) specifically highlights the need to collect reports on SUSARs (unexpected serious adverse reactions), urgent safety measures, and annual safety reports to keep clinical data transparent [4].
Reducing trial risk: incomplete data can derail approval and erode trust with funders, regulators, and patients.
Just consider: in a systematic review of oncology trials, the median completeness score for harm reporting was 8 out of 14[2]. There’s substantial room—and a real need—for improvement.
Don’t let critical safety info slip through the cracks. A well-designed, user-friendly survey makes it much easier for participants to step forward, increasing both the quantity and quality of what’s reported. And if you want to keep up with best practices, check out why AI-powered surveys are raising the bar for clinical trial feedback.
What makes a good survey on adverse events reporting
Survey design can make or break your data quality. For clinical trial participants reporting adverse events, these points are non-negotiable:
Clear, unbiased questions: The wording must be simple, direct, and avoid leading or loaded terms. No jargon, no ambiguity.
Conversational tone: Responses improve when people feel they’re chatting with someone who cares, not interrogated by a form. This approach builds trust and honesty.
The ultimate measure: you want both a high volume and high quality of responses. The best surveys maximize participation and produce actionable insight—not just long lists of vague or incomplete data points.
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Overly technical language | Plain, participant-friendly terms |
Generic, catch-all questions | Specific, focused questions about AEs |
No follow-up or probing | Conversational, tailored follow-ups |
One-way, cold tone | Friendly, empathetic prompts |
Our experience at Specific is that surveys with a warm, accessible vibe consistently outperform rigid forms. Want more ideas on crafting standout questions? Check our article on best survey questions for clinical trial participants.
Question types and practical examples for clinical trial participants survey about adverse events reporting
Great surveys blend open and structured questions, using AI for follow-ups when detail is needed.
Open-ended questions give participants room to describe issues in their own voice—essential for unexpected or nuanced adverse events. Use these to encourage stories or explanations when you want to dig deeper. Examples:
Can you describe any specific symptoms or side effects you’ve noticed during the trial?
How did these adverse events affect your daily life or participation in the study?
Single-select multiple-choice questions work well for structured, comparable data across participants. They’re best for identifying trends or commonalities in experiences. For example:
Which of the following best describes your experience with side effects during the trial?
No side effects
Mild side effects
Moderate side effects
Severe side effects
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is perfect for gauging participant satisfaction or willingness to recommend reporting processes. If you want a ready-made template, generate an NPS survey for clinical trial participants about adverse events reporting instantly. Example:
On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend reporting adverse events through this survey to other participants?
Followup questions to uncover "the why" are crucial for getting the real story behind someone’s initial answer. Use follow-ups when you need to clarify, get specifics, or understand the cause or impact of an event. Example:
What made you rate your experience this way?
Can you tell us more about what happened before you noticed the side effect?
We cover dozens more smart, actionable prompts in our deep dive on best survey questions—definitely worth a read if you want to build a bank of insights and tips.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey mimics a natural back-and-forth, much like chatting with a good interviewer. Instead of dumping a rigid list of questions, the survey adapts in real time—asking, clarifying, diving into details—so people open up and give productively honest feedback.
Using an AI survey generator isn’t just a minor improvement over static forms. You save time and mental energy, bypassing clunky “drag and drop builders” and instead, in seconds, produce a survey that feels almost custom—and delivers better data. Here’s how it breaks down:
Manual surveys | AI-generated conversational surveys |
|---|---|
Static, one-way | Dynamic, chat-like interaction |
No smart probing or adaptation | Real-time follow-up questions based on context |
Time-consuming setup | Survey ready in seconds with expert AI input |
Often formal, intimidating tone | Warm, accessible language boosts honesty |
Why use AI for clinical trial participants surveys? Because complexity melts away. AI-driven surveys adjust to each unique respondent to surface details you didn’t even know to ask—while making people feel seen, not just processed. Want to see how the process works step by step? We break down every detail in our how-to guide on creating and analyzing AE surveys.
Specific sets the gold standard for conversational survey UX—feedback collection feels smooth for creators and stress-free for participants. It’s how surveys should always have worked.
The power of follow-up questions
Digging deeper is everything. The standard “submit and done” approach leaves too many holes in understanding. With automatic AI-generated follow-up questions, you get smart, context-specific probes that mimic a sharp interviewer.
Participant: I had some nausea.
AI follow-up: How intense was the nausea, and how long did it last? Did anything help relieve it?
Without this, you’re left wondering: Was it severe? Did they have to stop the medication? Did it recur? These unknowns become lost data. Automated, real-time follow-up saves you hours that might otherwise go into endless email back-and-forths and lets AI contextualize each response, instantly, while it’s fresh in your participants’ minds.
How many followups to ask? Generally, 2–3 is enough to uncover the true story—after that, you risk survey fatigue. With Specific, you can set exactly how many follow-ups to send, and skip ahead once you’ve got the context you need.
This makes it a conversational survey: The interaction doesn’t feel like a static form but like a real dialogue—and that’s exactly what increases response rates and clarity.
AI analysis, response summaries, and themes: Just because you’re collecting lots of unstructured feedback doesn’t mean you’re left sorting through chaos. With AI-powered survey analysis (see how it works), you get automatic summaries, themes, and can even chat with your data. No more manual coding of open-ended responses. If you’re curious about the process, there’s a step-by-step guide to analyzing survey responses.
Try composing your own AE survey and you’ll see how dynamic, AI-driven follow-ups change the whole participant experience—and your data quality.
See this adverse events reporting survey example now
Don’t let crucial feedback go uncollected—see how easy it is to capture real insights with expert-designed, AI-driven conversational surveys for clinical trial participants on adverse events reporting. Create your own survey and act on participant feedback like never before.