How to Build a Medical Survey

A medical survey can be used for a number of reasons. For example, hospitals and health care facilities can use them to gather information about patient needs. Pharmaceutical companies can deploy them to collect preventative care information from prospective customers. Other types of organizations can use them to solicit valuable data regarding particular diseases, medication usage, or even public support for controversial research methods.

Like all surveying efforts, success is found in the development of the questionnaire. This article will explain the factors involved in building a medical survey. We’ll explore the importance of protecting your respondents’ privacy, how to create questions that yield useful responses, and potential applications for their use.

Protecting Respondents’ Privacy

The types of information offered by your respondents is sensitive by nature. It can include illnesses and disorders that people would prefer to keep private. It may also include family histories and records as well as medications and insurance information. Privacy is essential. The federal government requires that “covered entities” comply with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Privacy Act when soliciting information.

When designing your medical survey, you must go further than simple compliance with federal legislation. You must make it clear to your respondents that their information will be kept private. Even if the questionnaire is being conducted anonymously, it’s worthwhile to assuage any privacy concerns that your audience may have. You can do so easily by including text at the beginning explaining your survey’s purpose and what you intend to do with the data.

Designing Your Questionnaire

You should include a variety of question formats. Begin with questions that are simple and easy to answer. Not only will that persuade your respondents to continue, but it will also focus them on the topic. For example, suppose that you’re surveying your audience about diabetes. You might begin your questionnaire by simply asking whether they have diabetes and providing only two possible responses: “yes” or “no.”

The initial question sets the stage for those which follow. Plus, its simplicity encourages respondents to continue.

Try to include multiple choice, scales, ranking, and numerical questions throughout your questionnaire. If you use the same type of question over and over, you risk losing your audience’s attention. Their responses will become less thoughtful and accurate as they begin to speed through your medical survey in order to complete it. That can affect the validity of your data.

Also, use open-ended questions. For example, you can ask “What lifestyle changes have you made in order to cope with diabetes?” Even though the answers are often much harder to analyze, they can provide useful insight.

Finally, make your questions clear and concise; make your survey as brief as possible given your objectives. Few people are willing to spend a significant amount of time or effort answering a long list of medical questions that are unclear.

Possible Applications

Depending on the nature of your business or organization, medical surveys are used to collect data on a wide range of topics. For example, a life insurance company may ask policyholders to rate the organization which performs their medical examinations. Or, a consortium of hospitals can sponsor an initiative that asks seniors over 65 about their health care needs. Hospitals and primary care facilities can ask their employees to anonymously rate their establishment’s treatment of patients.

In each case, the data can have long-reaching impacts. Whether it leads to the development of new medications, internal policy changes, or targeted marketing campaigns, medical surveys can hold the key to valuable insight and information.

Source by Frank Lucer

How to Build a Medical Survey