This article will guide you on exactly how to create a Clinical Trial Participants survey about Informed Consent Understanding. With Specific, you can generate your own tailored survey in seconds—no manual effort or expertise required.
Steps to create a survey for clinical trial participants about informed consent understanding
If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific. Here’s how easy it is with AI surveys:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You honestly don’t even need to read further! AI handles everything—your survey is built with expert knowledge, with follow-up questions that adapt to each respondent, ensuring deeper insights. If you want to create any other survey, just use this AI survey generator—no coding, no forms, just results.
Why understanding informed consent matters in clinical trial participant feedback
If you’re not running these surveys, you’re missing out on crucial feedback that can transform both participant protection and study quality. When we look at the facts, the gaps are striking: only 52.1% of participants understood randomization, and a mere 53.3% comprehended the use of placebos in one comprehensive review. Even more concerning, 69% failed to understand randomization altogether[1].
This means nearly half of your trial participants may lack a clear grasp of what they’re agreeing to during informed consent.
Poor understanding risks noncompliance, misaligned expectations, ethical issues, and potential regulatory challenges.
These are all missed opportunities to improve patient autonomy, build trust, and ultimately, enhance your study’s outcomes.
The importance of clinical trial participant recognition surveys shouldn’t be underestimated. They reveal the benefits and barriers to comprehension, allowing sponsors and investigators to iterate and improve their processes. Without this feedback, you’re essentially operating in the dark.
What makes a good survey on informed consent understanding
Designing a truly effective survey for informed consent understanding comes down to quality over quantity, but let’s be honest—we want both. High response rates plus rich, useful feedback. That’s where the right approach matters.
Clear, unbiased questions help ensure participants interpret survey items exactly as you mean them. Jargon or leading questions dilute your data.
Conversational, approachable tone encourages participants to relax, answer honestly, and share more nuance—especially when the topic is complex or personal.
Here’s a quick look at bad and good survey practices:
Bad practice | Good practice |
|---|---|
Leading or technical questions | Plain language, neutral tone |
No room for elaboration | Followups to probe “why” |
Boring, intimidating form | Conversational, friendly |
Only multiple choice | Mix of open-ended and structured |
Ultimately, your measure of success is the number of thoughtful responses (quantity) and the actionable detail in answers (quality). If you’re not getting both, it’s time to rethink your approach.
Best question types for clinical trial participants survey about informed consent understanding
Not all question types are created equal, and mixing the right ones is critical for robust informed consent feedback from clinical trial participants.
Open-ended questions allow participants to express themselves in their own words—revealing nuance, motivation, and misunderstandings you’d never see in a multiple-choice format. Use these for “how” or “why” questions, especially early in a new trial or when refining processes.
“How would you explain randomization to a friend?”
“What part of the consent process was most confusing or unclear to you?”
Single-select multiple-choice questions provide structured data for easier analysis, making them ideal for measuring specific knowledge or beliefs among clinical trial participants. Use these to benchmark understanding or compliance.
Which of the following best describes your understanding of placebos before joining this trial?
I knew exactly what a placebo was
I had heard the term, but wasn’t sure
I had no clue what a placebo was
I still feel unsure what a placebo is
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question lets you gauge how likely clinical trial participants are to recommend the informed consent process to others—highlighting areas needing improvement and directly benchmarking satisfaction. If you want to generate a NPS survey instantly, click here for a NPS survey creator.
On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our trial’s informed consent process to a friend participating in a similar study?
Followup questions to uncover "the why" are powerful when you want to dig deeper into unexpected or unclear answers. Use these automatically after any response that could mean multiple things, to clarify meaning or motivation. Here’s an example:
“I found the information overwhelming.”
Follow-up: “Which parts of the information felt most overwhelming for you?”
If you want to explore more best questions and get tips on how to compose surveys for this audience and topic, check out this resource on best clinical trial participant informed consent survey questions.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is an AI-driven experience that feels like a natural chat—unlike a stiff form, respondents interact as if they’re speaking to a real person. The AI follows up with clarifying questions, adapts language on the fly, and probes for deeper understanding, ensuring you don’t miss the hidden gems qualitative feedback often brings.
Let’s compare:
Manual surveys | AI-generated surveys |
|---|---|
Static, generic questions | Expert-crafted, conversational questions |
No followups or rigid logic | Dynamic follow-ups tailored to responses |
Slow setup, error-prone | Survey ready in seconds—just describe your goal |
Often boring or intimidating | Natural, user-friendly chat interface |
Why use AI for clinical trial participant surveys? AI survey generators automate what used to take days: drafting questions, iterating on feedback, and labeling or coding raw data. With an AI survey example—especially a conversational one—you get higher-quality insights with less effort. Specific stands out with its best-in-class survey experience, making both survey creation and feedback collection seamless for your team and your participants. Want a step-by-step guide? Here’s our article on how to create clinical trial surveys.
The power of follow-up questions
Specific’s automated follow-up questions transform surveys into real conversations. The secret sauce? AI asks smart, context-aware follow-ups—just like a top-notch researcher would in an interview, in real time. You get richer, more actionable data, especially with clinical trial participants who may respond in unpredictable ways.
Clinical trial participant: “I wasn’t sure what randomization meant.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share what you think randomization means, or what confused you about it?”
Without this, you’re stuck guessing what your clinical trial participants really mean. Maybe you miss that nearly 69% didn’t understand randomization in your study, or that 30% identified a mistaken belief about proven treatments[2]. The power of smart follow-ups is they fill these clarity gaps on the spot.
How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 rounds are plenty to uncover the reasons behind each response, and Specific lets you set limits so you’re never intrusive—participants can always skip ahead once the info you wanted is collected.
This makes it a conversational survey: The flow adapts to each person, so it feels friendly and human—not static or “form-like.” That’s the power of conversational surveys.
Survey data analysis made easy: Even with lots of open responses and followups, AI-powered analysis tools (see this guide on AI survey response analysis) summarize and surface what matters, so you can act on insights without drowning in raw text.
Automated, context-aware followups are a new way to gather richer, actionable insights. Try generating a survey now to see the difference yourself.
See this informed consent understanding survey example now
The fastest, easiest way to create a compelling Clinical Trial Participants survey about informed consent understanding is to use an AI-powered, conversational approach—tailored, responsive, and designed for real insights. Create your own survey and unlock better data, instantly.