This article will guide you on how to create a clinical trial participants survey about barriers to participation. With Specific, you can build such a survey in seconds.
Steps to create a survey for clinical trial participants about barriers to participation
If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific. Here’s how simple it actually is:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You honestly don’t even need to read further—AI puts expert knowledge into every survey automatically, and it will even ask your respondents the right follow-up questions to collect insights that actually matter. You get a full, ready-to-share survey, packed with great questions and smart logic, in seconds. Try it for any survey need, not just for clinical trial barriers.
Why asking clinical trial participants about barriers to participation matters
Surveys like these are powerful for clinical research teams, coordinators, pharma, and anyone invested in improving clinical trial design. Too often, barriers to participation are poorly understood, leading to recruitment slowdowns and missed scientific opportunity.
Let’s talk impact. Less than 5% of adult cancer patients enroll in clinical trials [1]. That tiny number means new drugs and therapies take longer to reach those who need them, simply because researchers can’t enroll enough participants. In fact, 65% of clinical trials face delays due to slow recruitment [2]. These aren’t just stats—these are real lost chances to save or improve lives.
If you’re not running these surveys, you’re missing out on actionable insights to break down the wall between intention and action—what stops a participant from signing up, what makes some drop out?
Surveys surface the “why” behind non-participation: lack of awareness, logistics, trust issues, or even simply how the invitation is framed.
Capturing this info helps teams design more inclusive, accessible, and successful trials, so you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
This is the core benefit of understanding the importance of clinical trial participant feedback—use this data to build better studies, find the right people faster, and deliver real, measurable impact.
What makes a good survey on barriers to participation?
Quality of insight comes down to how well you pose questions and tap into barriers (like travel, side effects, financials, trust). Here’s our checklist for a rock-solid survey:
Clear, unbiased questions: Avoid complex, leading, or technical language so people can answer confidently.
Conversational tone: Make it approachable—ask questions like a real person, not like an academic paper.
Logical flow: Survey structure should start broad, then gently zoom into details.
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Double-barreled questions (“Did cost or travel stop you?”) | One factor per question (“Did the cost stop you?”) |
Yes/no only (“Did you participate?”) | Ask “why?” and let them elaborate |
Heavy jargon (“protocol deviation”) | Plain language (“changes to the trial rules”) |
The best metric? High quality and quantity of responses. If your survey gets high completion rates but answers are vague or shallow, rethink the design. Our advice: aim for both depth (context-rich responses) and breadth (lots of respondents willing to share).
What question types work best for a clinical trial participants survey about barriers to participation?
When composing your survey, it's smart to mix open-ended, single-select, and NPS questions—each uncovers unique insights about participant experiences and barriers. Here’s how we’d approach their use:
Open-ended questions are perfect when you want personal context, ideas, or stories beyond what multiple choice can catch. They encourage richer detail and let participants flag the one thing you didn’t think to ask.
What concerns did you have before deciding whether to participate in a clinical trial?
Can you describe what would have made joining a clinical trial more appealing to you?
Single-select multiple-choice questions are best for gauging the prevalence of specific barriers. They make analysis fast and force respondents to express priority.
Which of the following best describes the main reason you didn’t participate in a clinical trial?
Lack of awareness about available trials
Financial concerns
Worries about side effects
Travel or time commitments
Mistrust of research/medical system
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question patterns reveal word-of-mouth strength. They’re great near the end of a survey when you want a benchmark and driver analysis. If you need to generate an NPS survey in seconds, try this NPS survey builder for clinical trial participants.
On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend participating in a clinical trial to a friend or family member?
Followup questions to uncover "the why". One of the most effective strategies is to automatically ask a follow-up when the initial answer is unclear or could use extra context. These help you get to the “why” behind their first response.
Can you tell us more about what would have helped you feel more comfortable joining?
Why was travel such a major obstacle for you?
If you want to learn more, see a full breakdown of the best questions for clinical trial participant surveys about barriers and our tips on creating deeper, more actionable survey questions.
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys feel just like a chat—respondents answer questions one at a time, and the AI can instantly tailor follow-ups based on their replies. This dynamic, back-and-forth format is wildly different from static forms, where you just tick boxes and hope to be understood. AI-driven survey generators, like Specific, take this even further by automatically shaping the conversation and probing for deeper insights.
Manual survey creation (think: building forms in Google, copying templates, or writing survey logic from scratch) feels outdated in comparison. Let’s see how they stack up:
Manual surveys | AI-generated conversational surveys |
|---|---|
Time-intensive, repetitive setup | Instant surveys from plain language prompts |
Static questions, no real-time probing | Live follow-up questions, richer context |
Boring, transactional UX for respondents | Feels like a human conversation—more engaging |
Requires manual analysis | AI summarizes and distills results automatically |
Why use AI for clinical trial participant surveys? Simple—it’s the fastest, smartest way to generate an AI survey example that’s ready for real-world deployment. No more endless brainstorm sessions: just describe what you want (e.g., “survey barriers to participation in clinical trials”) and AI does the rest—writing, structuring, and optimizing follow-up logic. With Specific, both the survey creator and participants enjoy a streamlined, best-in-class experience that keeps engagement high and dropout rates low. If you want a step-by-step walkthrough on how to create a survey with AI, see our detailed guide here.
The power of follow-up questions
Anyone who’s analyzed survey data knows: responses are only as good as the follow-ups you ask. Specific’s AI follow-up feature automatically digs deeper, like a skilled interviewer, but instantly and at scale. If a participant shares a vague answer, Specific’s engine knows to ask for detail—saving you the hassle of endless email back-and-forth and giving you richer data immediately.
Clinical trial participant: “I didn’t hear about the study in time.”
AI follow-up: “What would have been the best way for you to learn about ongoing studies?”
How many followups to ask? In most studies, two or three smart followup questions are enough to get real clarity—without annoying your participants. With Specific, you can set this to your preferred number, or let the AI move on after it gets what you need.
This makes it a conversational survey—the conversation naturally unfolds, deepening your findings versus the stiff exchange of a form.
Survey response analysis with AI is now simple too: thanks to AI, you can review large volumes of open-ended or followup responses effortlessly. Here’s how to go from text mess to theme map: see our how-to guide on analyzing responses.
Automated AI followups are a new level of research power—give our generator a try and experience these smart, context-aware conversations for yourself.
See this barriers to participation survey example now
Create your own survey and capture insights from real clinical trial participants. The right questions—and smart, conversational follow-ups—unlock the barriers that block enrollment, empower your research, and speed up results. See the impact of great survey design in action.