Survey template: Clinical Trial Participants survey about barriers to participation

Understanding and tackling barriers to clinical trial participation is a challenge, especially when insight needs to drive real-world change—use and try this AI-powered survey template to get richer, more actionable feedback. Specific equips you with expert-built tools for collecting and analyzing what truly prevents enrollment and engagement in clinical research.

What is a conversational survey and why AI makes it better for clinical trial participants

Traditional surveys about barriers to participation rarely capture the real, nuanced reasons behind low enrollment—they ask rigid questions and struggle to adapt. Clinical trial participants’ feedback is complex: under 5% of adult cancer patients take part in trials, and roughly 80% of studies suffer delays due to recruitment problems. The true obstacles go way deeper than a simple checklist can reveal. [1]

That’s why a conversational survey—especially one built with an AI survey generator—outperforms the old ways. Instead of the static forms that miss context, AI-powered surveys from Specific create a natural, adaptive chat experience. With AI, your survey grows smarter in real time: it listens, probes, and clarifies, much like an experienced researcher would in a one-on-one interview. This means you’ll not only gather more detail but also make it easier for participants to share what’s really on their mind.

Why use AI for clinical trial participants surveys?

• Deeper insights: The AI calls out hidden barriers that aren’t obvious from checkboxes or multiple choice answers.

• Speed and ease: You can build expert-level surveys in a fraction of the time you’d spend scripting follow-ups yourself.

• Diverse voices captured: AI-driven conversations adapt for each respondent, giving space for marginalized or underrepresented groups—like Black individuals, who only account for 5% of all participants in trials, despite being 13% of the U.S. population. [2]

With Specific, the experience is best-in-class from start to finish: both the researcher and the participant benefit from surveys that feel meaningful, not mechanical. Want to optimize the actual questions asked? Explore the best questions for clinical trial participants barrier surveys and learn how to create a clinical trial barriers survey with AI using our flexible tools.

Automatic follow-up questions based on previous reply

Rich, high-quality data only happens when respondents are truly heard. With Specific, every answer from a clinical trial participant gets meaningful follow-up questions—powered by AI—right in the moment. This means the survey doesn’t just sit back and collect surface-level input; it actively uncovers hidden motivations or confusion that might otherwise get lost.

Imagine this:

• Participant: “I couldn’t join because of my schedule.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you tell me more about which times or days are hardest for you to attend? Was transportation or other obligations also a factor?”

If you skip the follow-up, here’s what you get:

• Participant: “I didn’t know about the trial.”

• No follow-up: (No further detail—you never learn if it was due to missing materials, language issues, or lack of trust.)

With automatic probing, you get depth and clarity—especially on sensitive topics like financial burdens or mistrust, which can be major but unspoken barriers (the average cost of recruiting one participant can hit $5,000 [1]). If you want to peek under the hood, check out how automatic AI follow-up questions work at Specific.

Follow-ups transform the process: you’re not running a form, you’re having a thoughtful conversation. That’s what makes it a true conversational survey.

Easy editing, like magic

It shouldn’t take hours—or expert-level survey know-how—to tweak a template or adapt your survey on the fly. With Specific, editing your survey feels like messaging a colleague: just describe what you want changed, and the AI survey editor instantly updates the questions, sequence, or even tone for you. No more fussing with page logic or branching; it’s all handled. You can shape and refine an AI survey template in seconds, leaning on the platform’s experience with clinical trial participants. Curious how this feels? Explore the editor here.

Flexible survey delivery: landing page or in-product

Getting your barriers to participation survey in front of the right clinical trial participants is as important as what you ask. Specific gives you flexible options:

• Sharable landing page surveys: Perfect for sending via email or SMS to lists of previous or potential participants, community groups, or advocacy organizations related to your trial. Launch a branded, mobile-friendly survey instantly—no app or login required.

• In-product surveys: Embed the survey directly within a clinical trial management portal, participant dashboard, or study website. Trigger real-time feedback immediately after a patient completes screening, logs in, or encounters a protocol challenge—great for identifying drop-off and timing-specific barriers.

For barriers to participation, the landing page delivery works particularly well for reaching underserved groups and broad populations—especially those who might not already be logged into your tech ecosystem. If your context values timing and reaching people just as they encounter a challenge, in-product delivery may be more effective.

Powerful AI survey analysis and instant insights

No more struggling with spreadsheets or coding themes by hand—Specific uses AI survey analysis to summarize, categorize, and surface the main barriers your participants cite. Instantly spot trends, like how financial burdens or lack of awareness are recurring themes (only 25% of eligible patients even know about trials as an option [1]), and immediately act. The platform auto-detects topics, highlights outlier responses, and you can even have a conversation with the AI about the results to dig into the “why.” You can learn more in our deep dive into how to analyze clinical trial participants barriers to participation survey responses with AI.

Bottom line: automated survey insights with AI mean less time cleaning data—and more time actually breaking down the barriers to enrollment.

Use this barriers to participation survey template now

Start using this survey template built for clinical trial participants to uncover real-world barriers and turn raw voices into actionable improvements—powered by AI-driven analysis and conversational design from Specific.