The document provides a checklist for designing a questionnaire, with important considerations in two sections. First, prior to writing questions, the checklist notes that key objectives and uses of the data, target population characteristics, and data collection method should be defined. Second, when writing questions, the checklist indicates questions should be checked for biases, logical order, exclusivity of responses, clarity, jargon, complexity, readability, and overall layout. Input from respondents is also deemed essential throughout the process.

1. Questionnaire Design Checklist
Prior to writing the questions
It’s tempting when developing a questionnaire to jump straight into
writing the questions, but first there are some important things you
must consider.
Some things to consider
• Why are you doing the survey? It is essential that the overall
objectives of the patient survey are defined at the outset.
• What do you plan to do with the data collected?
• Who are your target population, will they have the information you
want, is English their first language etc?
• How will you collect the information? Paper, web, is your target
population able to use or has access to online sources?
WRITING THE QUESTIONS
When writing the questions you need to check for:
 Loaded or leading questions, phrases, or words
 Questions that are out of order and or biased
 Mutually non-exclusive responses
 Vague or non-specific questions
 Jargon
 Double-barrelled questions
 Memory questions
 Readability
 Overall layout including: page breaks, skip/branch logic etc.
Note: It is essential you have respondent input
throughout the design, evaluation and testing of
the questionnaire.
www.healthsurveysolutions.com
Understand
the big
picture
Choose the
question
type
Craft a
good
question
Pilot and
perfect