CHPN Exam Blueprint: Format & Content Domains

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The Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse exam from HPCC covers the full
scope of hospice and palliative RN practice. Here’s the format and the content areas.

Exam format

Item Detail
Questions 150 (135 scored, 15 unscored)
Time 3 hours
Format Multiple choice, single best answer

Content domains

HPCC organizes the CHPN around the core domains of hospice and palliative nursing practice:

  • Patient and family assessment and care planning
  • Pain and symptom management
  • Supportive communication and education
  • Ethics, legal, and professional practice
  • Care of the patient and family at the end of life

What to expect

Pain and symptom management is the clinical heart of the exam — expect heavy coverage
of opioids and equianalgesic conversions, common symptoms (dyspnea, nausea, delirium,
constipation), and end-of-life care. But the CHPN is broader than pharmacology: communication,
ethics, grief and bereavement, and the structure of the hospice benefit all appear.

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Sources & references

The exam facts on this page are drawn from official certifying-body materials, reviewed 2026-06-18 by the DrCertifications exam-prep team (10+ years in exam preparation and publishing).