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How to create police officer survey about peer support programs

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Adam Sabla

·

Aug 22, 2025

Create your survey

This article will guide you on how to create a police officer survey about peer support programs. With Specific, you can generate such a survey in seconds—no hassle, just results.

Steps to create a survey for police officers about peer support programs

If you want to save time, just click this link to generate a survey with Specific.

  1. Tell what survey you want.

  2. Done.

That’s it—you honestly don’t need to read any further if you just want a working survey. AI handles everything, from expert question selection to conversational follow-ups that extract the deepest insights from your respondents. No manual work, no guesswork, no complicated forms—just semantic surveys that do the heavy lifting for you.

Why feedback on peer support programs from police officers really matters

There’s a reason peer support has become a hot topic in law enforcement. Roughly 30% of first responders develop behavioral health conditions like depression or PTSD, compared to just 20% in the general population [1]. If you’re not regularly running surveys or feedback studies with your team, you’re missing critical signals about officers’ well-being, workplace culture, and the performance of your support programs.

  • Improved mental health outcomes: Surveys help leadership spot early signs of distress and tailor support strategies. Studies show officers who participate in peer groups report fewer PTSD symptoms and improved well-being [2].

  • Reduced stigma and safer workplace: Asking about peer support creates opportunities to talk about mental health, reducing stigma and encouraging more officers to seek help before crises happen [4].

  • Organizational insight: Leadership gets to see what’s really working (or not) from the ground level—feedback that’s tough to obtain through top-down communication alone.

Skipping these surveys means missing actionable insights that directly impact resilience, trust, and the effectiveness of your department’s peer support initiatives. For more context, check out our overview of the importance of police officer recognition surveys and questions that matter.

What makes a good police officer survey about peer support?

The best surveys for peer support programs use clear, unbiased language and a conversational flow. This helps officers feel safe, encourages honesty, and avoids loaded or leading questions. Here’s how to spot the difference:

Bad practices

Good practices

Loaded wording (“You don’t feel… do you?”)

Simple, open-ended phrasing (“How has the program affected you?”)

Yes/no questions with no context

Follow-ups that probe for details and emotions

Technical jargon

Conversational, plain language

Anonymous, one-size-fits-all tone

Personalized, empathetic approach

The ultimate measure? Quantity and quality of responses. If you’re not getting enough participation, or you’re getting vague/guarded answers, your survey needs improvement—ideally, tweaks that increase trust and make it easy to respond authentically.

Types of questions with police officer survey examples for peer support programs

Quality insights start with the right questions—matched to the goals of your peer support evaluation. Here’s a quick primer:

Open-ended questions are ideal when you want honest, nuanced reflections. Officers are free to speak their minds, which can uncover stories, unanticipated outcomes, and context you’d never get from a checkbox.

  • “Can you describe a time when peer support made a difference for you or a colleague?”

  • “What challenges have you faced in accessing or participating in the program?”

Single-select multiple-choice questions make results easy to quantify and compare, especially when you want consistent structure or need to measure trends over time. These also work well for demographic or experience-level questions for segmentation.

How comfortable are you discussing mental health with peers in your department?

  • Very comfortable

  • Somewhat comfortable

  • Uncomfortable

  • Prefer not to say

NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is powerful for gauging overall satisfaction or willingness to recommend the peer support program. To try it instantly, generate a NPS survey for police officers about peer support programs.

On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend the peer support program to a fellow officer?

Followup questions to uncover "the why": These are powerful when responses need context or clarification. For example, if an officer reports feeling “uncomfortable” discussing mental health, follow-ups can uncover whether it’s about privacy, trust, supervisor attitudes, or something else. This gives you actionable intelligence.

  • What makes it uncomfortable for you to discuss mental health with your peers?

  • Were there any past experiences that contributed to this feeling?

Learn more about curating the best questions for police officer surveys about peer support programs—from practical tips to field-tested question libraries.

What is a conversational survey—and why does AI make it better?

Conversational surveys mimic a real conversation. Instead of blasting a static form, the AI acts as your co-interviewer—adapting, reacting, and asking smart follow-ups based on each answer. With AI survey generation, you get a survey that feels more like a helpful chat than a test. Traditional survey creation is time-consuming, repetitive, and often results in forms that feel cold or impersonal; with AI, you get an expert-designed, dynamic survey in seconds, and can edit it by just chatting with the AI.

Manual surveys

AI-generated surveys

Static forms—respondents fill and submit

Dynamic, chat-like conversation that adapts to answers

Takes hours to draft and refine

Ready in seconds, using expert knowledge

Limited follow-up or probing

Automated follow-ups for richer insight

Easily skipped or ignored by busy officers

Engaging, easier to complete on mobile or desktop

Why use AI for police officer surveys? Because time and trust are at a premium. Police officers are more likely to engage when the process is quick, feels private, and adapts to their needs—AI handles all of that, and more. In fact, Specific delivers the best-in-class conversational survey UX, proven to drive both higher participation and deeper context. Want a practical walkthrough? Check out our guide to creating and analyzing a conversational survey for police officers.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are a game-changer for uncovering real motivations and barriers—especially around topics as nuanced as peer support and mental health. Specific’s automated AI follow-up questions feature listens to an officer’s response, then asks natural, clarifying questions right away. This process mimics a skilled interviewer, resulting in insights that no static form can reach. Most importantly, it saves busy teams from chasing down incomplete answers over email or calls—and respondents experience a fluid, trustworthy conversation.

  • Police officer: “I haven’t really participated in the support group.”

  • AI follow-up: “Could you share what stopped you from joining—was it a time issue, privacy concern, or something else?”

How many followups to ask? Generally, 2–3 followups are perfect for depth without fatigue. With Specific, you can even set it to skip ahead when you’ve collected enough info—making sure you always strike the right balance.

This makes it a conversational survey—not a cold form, but an adaptive, respectful dialogue that encourages officers to open up.

AI analysis, qualitative insights, text response analysis: No need to review mountains of unstructured feedback. Tools like Specific’s survey response analysis let you chat with the data and instantly get summaries of themes, sentiments, and recommendations. See how in our in-depth guide for police officer survey analysis.

Followup-enabled surveys are a new approach—if you haven’t tried one, generate a survey right now and experience the difference.

See this peer support programs survey example now

Create your own survey in minutes to see how effortless it can be to engage police officers, uncover meaningful insights, and drive real improvement in peer support programs—with expert-level AI and follow-up innovation, all in one place.

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Sources

  1. Compassion-Alliance.org. 30% of first responders develop behavioral health conditions (compared to 20% in general population).

  2. NumberAnalytics.com. Officers participating in peer support groups report reduced PTSD symptoms and improved well-being.

  3. Springer.com. Studies on police culture, stigma, and confidentiality.

  4. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. Peer support reduces stigma and normalizes mental health conversations in law enforcement.

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.