Clinic Study: Survey usability 

Conducting cognitive interviews to improve the quality of intake surveys at an adolescent clinic. 

Challenge

Our client wanted to improve it's current inpatient flow, which included asking new patients to complete an intake assessment survey.  We conducted 10 cognitive interviews asking participants to use a think aloud protocol, and say everything they were thinking about as they answered the questions out loud.  

Goals

The primary focus of this research was a quality improvement assessment to look for issues with a new patient intake questionnaire including:

• Instruction wording

• Question wording and comprehension

• Question response/scale options wording and applicability

• Question sequencing

Results

We delivered a summary of findings and a detailed assessment of the intake survey.  Providing our client with suggestions to improve the survey process including shortening the survey to about 10 minutes,  reordering questions, and using youth friendly language.