This article will guide you on how to create a Patient survey about Shared Decision-Making. You can build a professional survey in seconds—just use Specific’s generate tool and get started right away!
Steps to create a survey for patients about shared decision-making
If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific and skip the hassle. Here’s all it takes:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
You honestly don’t need to read further if you’re ready to go—AI fills in all the expert knowledge, and your survey will even ask respondents intelligent follow-up questions to uncover meaningful insights. If you want to dive deeper or create another type of survey, try the full AI survey generator.
Why patient shared decision-making surveys matter
Let’s be blunt: if you’re not running patient surveys on shared decision-making, you’re missing out on vital feedback that drives better care and health outcomes. When we truly involve patients in shared decision-making (SDM), the numbers speak for themselves:
71% of patients report higher satisfaction when they’re included in SDM, versus just 35% who weren’t engaged in the process [1].
Patient involvement isn’t just about satisfaction—SDM leads to faster recovery, less anxiety, and improved compliance with treatments [1].
There’s a critical point here: the absence of SDM surveys leaves blind spots that can result in higher emergency room visits—a lack of strong SDM is linked to a 25% higher chance of multiple ER visits [2]. Don’t let missed opportunities for feedback set back your organization or quality of care. The importance of patient recognition surveys is hard to understate—they directly impact patient experience, organizational costs, and your ability to deliver patient-centered care.
What makes a good patient survey on shared decision-making?
Anyone can make a survey, but effective surveys about shared decision-making have a few things in common. Here’s what we always aim for at Specific:
Clear, unbiased questions: Avoid jargon, ambiguity, or leading language. Questions should be straightforward enough for every patient to understand without interpretation.
Conversational tone: When your survey sounds like a real human conversation, patients open up more easily—and you get richer, more accurate responses.
The gold standard for a great survey is high-quality and high-quantity responses. You want lots of genuine feedback—not just clicks, but thoughtful answers that lead to actionable insights.
Bad practices | Good practices |
|---|---|
Overly complex/technical language | Simple, plain-language questions |
Yes/No with no followup | Open-ended for context |
Rigid, impersonal tone | Conversational, approachable tone |
What are the best question types? Examples for patient surveys about shared decision-making
The best patient surveys combine a few key question types to balance depth and structure. Here’s how and when to use each—plus concrete examples to inspire your survey design:
Open-ended questions: These let patients express themselves in their own words and are ideal when you want to uncover context, motivations, or specific experiences. Use them at the start or to drill down on a topic.
Can you describe a time when you felt fully involved in making a decision about your treatment?
What information would have helped you feel more confident about your medical choices?
Single-select multiple-choice questions: Perfect for quantifiable trends and segmenting responses. Use them when you need a quick, comparable snapshot.
During your last visit, how much did you feel your values and preferences were considered?
A lot
A little
Not at all
Not sure
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question: Use an NPS survey to benchmark loyalty and likelihood to recommend your organization, then trigger follow-up questions based on the score.
On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our clinic, based on how much you were included in shared decision-making?
Followup questions to uncover "the why": Always give space to explore answers and clarify meaning. AI-enabled surveys can dynamically ask for details, making your results much richer. For example:
What was it about your experience that led you to feel your values were (or were not) considered?
Can you tell me more about what would have improved your involvement in decision-making?
If you want to learn more question examples, or get tips on how to phrase them for maximum insight, check out our deep dive: best questions for patient survey about shared decision-making.
What is a conversational survey?
In a conversational survey, questions and follow-ups mimic real-life dialogue. Instead of bland forms, your survey feels more like texting a knowledgeable care coordinator who adapts as the story unfolds. This approach increases the quantity and quality of responses, reflecting how people prefer to interact today.
Manual surveys | AI-generated conversational surveys |
|---|---|
Rigid, prescripted questions | Dynamic followups adjust on the fly |
Flat, impersonal experience | Feels like a two-way conversation |
Difficult to edit and iterate | Instant editing via AI survey editor |
Why use AI for patient surveys? The big difference is context: AI survey generation removes a ton of manual work, produces smarter questions, and enables instant, conversational feedback. If you want an AI survey example for patients, Specific lets you create surveys that adapt questions on the fly, capturing genuine insights you’d miss with static forms. Our user experience is best-in-class, making it easy and engaging for everyone. For step-by-step guidance, see our article on how to create a patient survey with AI.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are what turn a survey from a blunt instrument into a real conversation. When you skip follow-ups, you risk missing out on the details behind a patient’s answer—details that drive actionable insights. Specific’s AI-powered followup questions work like an expert researcher, asking clarifying or probing questions in real-time, perfectly matched to each previous reply. This replaces endless back-and-forth by email or phone, and saves hours of manual work while making sure every response is clear.
Patient: "I didn’t feel included."
AI follow-up: "Can you tell me more about what made you feel excluded from the decision-making?"
How many followups to ask? Typically, 2-3 follow-ups per question are enough to get to the root cause. The key is balancing depth without exhausting your respondent. Specific gives you flexible settings so you can control the number of followups, including an option to stop if you already received enough info.
This makes it a conversational survey—engaging, contextual, and better at surfacing what truly matters to your patients.
AI survey response analysis, automated insights—even when answers are mostly unstructured text, it’s now effortless to analyze everything with AI. If you want tips on this, check out our article on how to analyze responses from a patient survey about shared decision-making.
We believe automated followup questions are a game changer—try generating a survey to see exactly how powerful your patient feedback can become.
See this shared decision-making survey example now
Ready to get deeper insights and improve patient care? Create your own conversational patient survey on shared decision-making in seconds with AI.