Pharmaceutical & Healthcare

    Coding physician and patient open-ends in pharmaceutical research

    Prescribing reasons, adherence barriers, perception of a launch: the AI proposes the codebook, codes every response, and your team reviews the doubtful ones before delivery.

    What makes open-ends hard in healthcare

    Physician answers are short and technical; patient answers are long and emotional. Both have to end up in a clear table.

    A physician writes "safety profile, once-daily dosing, covered by formulary" in one line: three different reasons in one answer.

    Patients mix cost, side effects they feel and forgetting in one sentence about why they stopped treatment.

    A comment may mention a possible adverse event, and the team needs to find it for its own pharmacovigilance process.

    Multi-country studies arrive in several languages and the client expects one codebook to compare markets.

    How a healthcare open-end works in Survey Coder Pro

    The AI reads all the responses and proposes a codebook, or applies the one the study already has. Every response gets all the codes that apply, and doubtful ones go to human review.

    Nets that separate efficacy, safety, dosing, access and cost in prescribing reasons.

    You can create a code that flags mentions of possible adverse events and filter them so your team reviews them under its own procedure.

    Responses from several countries and languages coded with the same codebook.

    Codes as columns per respondent in the .sav or Excel file, and tabulation with specialty or country in the banner.

    Pharma Use Cases

    Applications for pharmaceutical research

    Patient Journey

    Mapping the patient journey from diagnosis to treatment.

    HCP Feedback

    Analysis of physician opinions on treatments and products.

    Clinical Studies

    Coding open comments from participants in observational and patient experience studies.

    Launches

    New medication and treatment acceptance analysis.

    Adherence

    Treatment adherence barriers and drivers.

    Real World Evidence

    Qualitative data coding from observational studies.

    Illustrative example

    Example: patient adherence barriers

    Survey of patients on a chronic treatment who report having stopped or skipped doses. Here is part of the dataset after coding.

    Open-ended question

    Why did you stop taking the medication, or why do you sometimes skip doses?

    Responses and assigned codes

    ResponseCodes
    “I forget the evening one, especially on weekends.”
    Forgetting
    “My pharmacy is often out of stock and paying out of pocket elsewhere is really expensive.”
    Out of stockMedication cost
    “It made me dizzy in the mornings so I decided to stop for a while.”
    Perceived discomfortPossible adverse event (review)
    “I feel fine now so I figured I didn't need it anymore.”
    Feels well / thinks it's no longer needed
    “Too many pills a day, between this one and my blood pressure meds I get mixed up.”
    Too many doses a day
    “My doctor switched me to this and didn't really explain how to take it.”
    Not enough information from doctor
    “My follow-up appointment was three months away and my prescription ran out.”
    Appointment access / prescription expired

    Codebook excerpt

    Net / code% of respondents who answered
    NET Access and cost36%
    Medication cost17%
    Out of stock14%
    Appointment access / prescription expired11%
    NET Routine34%
    Forgetting26%
    Too many doses a day12%
    NET Treatment perception30%
    Feels well / thinks it's no longer needed16%
    Perceived discomfort15%
    Not enough information from doctor6%
    NET For team review9%
    Possible adverse event (review)9%

    Multi-code question: one response can carry several codes, so percentages add up to more than 100%. A net counts each respondent once, even if they have several codes from that group.

    Example built for this page: this is not client data and the percentages are illustrative.

    For market research agencies

    • Physician studies (prescribing reasons, launch perception) and patient studies, coded with the codebook you agree on with the pharma client.
    • Multi-wave ATU (awareness, trial, usage) trackers that inherit the codebook.
    • You deliver the .sav or Excel file with codes as columns per respondent, plus a tabulation book with specialty or country in the banner.
    • Your team reviews the doubtful answers and the ones that fall under the possible adverse event code, and applies its own procedure.

    For insights and experience teams at pharma companies and healthcare providers

    • Comments from patient support programs or medical visit satisfaction surveys coded every month without reading them by hand.
    • Same codebook across waves and countries, so differences can be compared.
    • Export to Excel or .sav and cross it in your BI tool with product, region or specialty.
    • A dedicated code for possible adverse events lets you find those comments quickly and pass them to your pharmacovigilance team.

    Frequently asked questions

    Does Survey Coder Pro report adverse events?

    No. It does not file reports or replace the pharmacovigilance process. What you can do is keep a code in the codebook to flag comments that mention a possible adverse event, filter them and hand them to your team, which applies its own procedure.

    Is the AI specialized in medicine?

    It is not a specialized medical model. It codes from what the responses say and from the codebook you generate or load. That's why doubtful answers go to human review, and your team can adjust codes to the terminology the study uses.

    Can it code physician answers with abbreviations and technical terms?

    Yes. The AI codes them against the codebook, and the ones that aren't clear are flagged as doubtful. It helps for the codebook to have explicit code definitions (for example, separating "dosing" from "route of administration").

    Does it work for multi-country studies?

    Yes. Responses in different languages are coded with the same codebook, so the table by country uses the same categories.

    Try the workflow on one of your own open-ended questions

    Upload a dataset with an open-ended question and see the codebook the AI proposes. The free trial includes 250 responses.