This free CHPN study guide walks through the highest-yield content the Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse exam tests, organized by the five domains of the HPCC content outline — assessment and care planning, pain management, symptom management, support and advocacy, and practice issues.[1]
It is interactive, not a wall of text: every domain has worked clinical scenarios, comparison tables, labeled diagrams, and built-in flashcards, taught the way the CHPN actually tests hospice and palliative nursing — relieving , managing the symptoms of the dying patient, supporting the family, and navigating the ethics and regulation of end-of-life care.
Read it domain by domain, then round out your prep with our practice questions and flashcards. The CHPN validates the knowledge a registered nurse needs to provide expert hospice and palliative care — comfort-focused care for patients with a serious or life-limiting illness and their families.
CHPN Exam Snapshot
| Detail | CHPN exam |
|---|---|
| Items | 150 multiple-choice (135 scored + 15 unscored pretest) |
| Time limit | 3 hours |
| Format | Computer-based via PSI (test center or live remote proctoring) |
| Passing score | Scaled 200–800; passing cut = 500 (criterion-referenced, Angoff-set) |
| Content | 5 domains: Assessment & Planning, Pain Management, Symptom Management, Support/Education/Advocacy, Practice Issues |
| Eligibility | Active unrestricted RN license + 500 hospice/palliative hrs in 12 mo (or 1,000 in 24 mo) |
| Exam fee | ≈ 455 non-member; retest ≈ $135 (dated anchor — verify on advancingexpertcare.org) |
| Recertification | Valid 4 years; renew via HPCC accrual program (SJE + hours + points) or by exam |
| Credential | Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN) |
The exam is dominated by direct patient care: the Assessment, Pain Management, and Symptom Management domains together make up roughly 60% of the questions, with Support/Education/Advocacy and Practice Issues rounding out the rest. The percentages below are from HPCC’s current (2026) content outline, computed from its published item counts out of 135 scored items.[1]
These weights are HPCC’s 2026 figures (Symptom Management, Support/Education/Advocacy, and Practice Issues at about 20.7% each; Pain Management 19.3%; Assessment 18.5%). HPCC re-weights the outline after each practice-analysis study — its 2027 outline shifts more weight onto the clinical domains (Symptom Management rises to about 26%, Pain to 22%, Assessment to 23%, while Support and Practice Issues fall) — so confirm the figures for your exam year on the HPCC site.[1]
How the CHPN Is Built: the HPCC Domains
The CHPN is built and maintained by the — the credentialing arm of the — and is tied to a periodic role-delineation (practice-analysis) study that keeps the content outline current with real hospice and palliative nursing practice.[1][2]
Everything on the exam ladders up from one idea: the goal of hospice and palliative care is to relieve — suffering that is physical, psychological, social, and spiritual — and to support both the patient and the family as a unit of care. The five domains are simply the practical expression of that mission: assess and plan, control pain, control other symptoms, support and teach the family, and practice ethically within the team and the regulations.
Assessment & Care Planning
Assessment and care planning is roughly 18% of the exam.[1] It is where you decide who qualifies for hospice, where the patient is on their illness trajectory, and what the plan of care should be. Master the distinction between hospice and palliative care, the prognostic scales, and the recognizable signs of imminent death, and you own the foundation the rest of the exam builds on.
Hospice vs. Palliative Care & Eligibility
The single most-tested distinction on the CHPN is versus . Palliative care is for anyone with a serious illness, at any stage, given alongside curative or disease-directed treatment, with no prognosis requirement.
Hospice is a subset of palliative care for patients with a prognosis of about six months or less who have chosen comfort care and forgo curative treatment of the terminal illness. All hospice is palliative care, but not all palliative care is hospice.[4]
For the U.S. Medicare Hospice Benefit, eligibility requires that two physicians (the hospice medical director or interdisciplinary-group physician, plus the patient's attending) certify a prognosis of six months or less if the disease runs its normal course. Eligibility for specific diseases is supported by functional and disease-specific criteria — NYHA Class IV for heart failure, FAST stage 7 for dementia, and so on.[4]
| Condition | Functional / clinical anchors |
|---|---|
| Cancer | Metastatic/advanced disease with declining function (PPS ≤ 50%) and a course consistent with ≤ 6 months |
| Heart failure | NYHA Class IV (symptoms at rest), optimally treated, often EF ≤ 20% |
| COPD | Disabling dyspnea at rest, progression (ED visits/hospitalizations), hypoxemia, cor pulmonale, weight loss |
| Dementia | FAST stage 7c (nonambulatory) plus a serious comorbidity (aspiration pneumonia, sepsis, stage 3–4 ulcers, weight loss) |
| End-stage renal disease | Stopping/forgoing dialysis with creatinine clearance < 10 mL/min (< 15 with comorbidity) |
| Liver disease | INR > 1.5 and albumin < 2.5, plus ascites, SBP, hepatorenal syndrome, or recurrent variceal bleeding |
Prognostication (PPS, KPS & Disease Criteria)
combines a functional scale, disease-specific criteria, and — most importantly — the trajectory of decline. The two functional scales the CHPN tests are the (PPS) and the (KPS). A PPS or KPS of about 50% or less is a common functional threshold for hospice, and a falling score over time is a stronger signal than any single number.[6]
Recognizing Imminent Death
In the final days and hours, dying patients show a recognizable cluster of changes: decreasing intake and wakefulness, profound weakness, cool and mottled extremities, a weak or irregular pulse, falling blood pressure, decreased urine output, irregular or Cheyne-Stokes breathing, noisy secretions, and terminal restlessness. Recognizing these lets the nurse prepare and support the family.[6]
Two facts the CHPN loves to test: a transient surge of energy or alertness can occur days before death and must not be mistaken for recovery, and hearing is thought to be preserved late, so families are encouraged to keep talking to the patient.
Levels of Care & the Medicare Benefit
The defines four levels of care, and the CHPN expects you to match the level to the patient's need. Most hospice happens at the routine home-care level; continuous home care and general inpatient care are for crises, and respite care exists to relieve the family caregiver.[4]
Benefit periods run as two 90-day periods followed by an unlimited number of 60-day periods, each requiring recertification that the patient still has a six-month prognosis; the third and later periods require a face-to-face encounter by a hospice physician or nurse practitioner. The benefit covers care related to the terminal diagnosis — interdisciplinary visits, medications, equipment — and bereavement support for the family for up to 13 months after death.[4]
Checkpoint · Assessment & Care Planning
Question 1 of 10
A 72-year-old patient with advanced heart failure is undergoing palliative care. Which assessment tool is most appropriate for determining the patient's risk of mortality within the next six months?
Pain Management
Pain management is roughly 19% of the exam and is the clinical heart of the CHPN.[1] It is built on assessing pain accurately, applying the , dosing opioids safely, converting between them with , and using for the pain types opioids alone do not fully cover.
Pain Types & Assessment
Classify pain to choose the right drug. Nociceptive pain comes from tissue damage and is either somatic (well-localized, aching — skin, muscle, bone) or visceral (deep, cramping, poorly localized — organs); both respond to opioids, with NSAIDs and steroids as helpful co-analgesics. Neuropathic pain (burning, shooting, tingling) responds best to adjuvants — gabapentin/pregabalin, TCAs, and SNRIs — added to the opioid.[6]
Pain is what the patient says it is. Use self-report scales (0–10 numeric, Wong-Baker FACES) whenever the patient can communicate, and validated behavioral scales — the PAINAD for advanced dementia, the Checklist of Nonverbal Pain Indicators — when they cannot. Reassess after every change in therapy.
The WHO Analgesic Ladder & Opioids
The is the framework for cancer and palliative pain. Step 1 (mild pain) uses a non-opioid; Step 2 (mild-to-moderate) adds a weak opioid; Step 3 (moderate-to-severe) uses a strong opioid such as morphine. An adjuvant can be added at any step, and in palliative care severe pain often goes directly to a Step 3 opioid.[3]
Non-opioid: acetaminophen or an NSAID
Weak opioid (e.g., codeine, low-dose hydrocodone or oxycodone) + non-opioid
Strong opioid (morphine, hydromorphone, oxycodone, fentanyl, methadone) + non-opioid
The guiding principles are by the mouth, by the clock, and by the ladder: prefer the oral route, give persistent pain on a scheduled (around-the-clock) basis rather than only as needed, and escalate by severity. Add a short-acting of about 10–20% of the 24-hour total for breakthrough flares — and if the patient needs frequent rescue doses, raise the scheduled baseline.
Equianalgesia & Opioid Rotation
To switch opioids or routes without losing pain control, use an table. Two conversions worth knowing: oral morphine to parenteral morphine is roughly 3:1 (30 mg oral ≈ 10 mg IV/subcutaneous), and oral morphine to oral oxycodone is roughly 1.5:1. When rotating to a new opioid, reduce the calculated equianalgesic dose by 25–50% for incomplete cross-tolerance — tolerance to the old opioid does not fully transfer to the new one.[6]
| Conversion | Approximate ratio | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Oral morphine → IV/SC morphine | ≈ 3 : 1 | 30 mg PO ≈ 10 mg IV/SC |
| Oral morphine → oral oxycodone | ≈ 1.5 : 1 | 30 mg morphine ≈ 20 mg oxycodone |
| Oral morphine → oral hydromorphone | ≈ 5 : 1 | 30 mg morphine ≈ 6–7.5 mg hydromorphone |
| Rotation adjustment | ↓ 25–50% | Reduce the new opioid for incomplete cross-tolerance |
| Breakthrough (rescue) dose | 10–20% of 24-hr total | Immediate-release, PRN |
Methadone is the exception to every rule: its long, variable half-life and non-linear potency mean it is not converted with a simple ratio and requires specialist dosing, and it can prolong the QT interval. Avoid meperidine in palliative care — its metabolite normeperidine accumulates and causes neurotoxicity and seizures.
Adjuvants & Tolerance vs. Addiction
target pain that opioids alone do not fully cover: anticonvulsants and antidepressants for neuropathic pain, corticosteroids (dexamethasone) for nerve/cord compression, raised intracranial pressure, capsular stretch, and bowel obstruction, and bisphosphonates plus palliative radiation for painful bone metastases.[6]
Finally, the CHPN insists you distinguish (needing more for the same effect — normal), (withdrawal on abrupt stopping — normal, managed by tapering), and (compulsive use despite harm — a behavioral disease, uncommon when opioids treat pain). Confusing these terms is the leading cause of under-treated pain, and pseudoaddiction — drug-seeking driven by under-treated pain — resolves once analgesia is adequate.
Checkpoint · Pain Management
Question 1 of 10
Which medication should be used cautiously in a palliative care patient with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 'COPD' and renal insufficiency requiring opioid therapy for cancer pain?
Symptom Management
Symptom management is roughly 21% of the exam — the single largest clinical domain.[1] Beyond pain, the dying patient experiences dyspnea, nausea, constipation, delirium, secretions, and anorexia, and the CHPN tests the right first-line response to each. The recurring theme is comfort: treat the symptom, treat reversible causes, and avoid burdensome interventions that no longer serve the patient's goals.
Dyspnea & Respiratory Secretions
— the sensation of air hunger — is treated first-line with low-dose opioids, which reduce the perception of breathlessness. Oxygen helps only if the patient is hypoxic; a fan directed at the face relieves breathlessness even without hypoxia, and a benzodiazepine is added for associated anxiety. Like pain, dyspnea is subjective — a normal pulse-oximetry reading does not rule it out.[6]
The — noisy breathing from pooled secretions in the actively dying patient — is usually more distressing to the family than to the often-unconscious patient. Manage it with repositioning and an antimuscarinic (glycopyrrolate, scopolamine, atropine, or hyoscyamine), started early before large volumes pool. Avoid deep suctioning — it is distressing and largely ineffective — and reassure the family that this is a normal part of dying.
Nausea, Constipation & GI Symptoms
Choose the antiemetic by the cause: chemoreceptor-trigger-zone nausea (opioids, metabolic) responds to haloperidol; gastric stasis responds to the prokinetic metoclopramide; vestibular/motion nausea responds to anticholinergics or antihistamines; and chemotherapy/radiation nausea responds to ondansetron. Matching the drug to the pathway is a classic CHPN item.[6]
Opioid-induced constipation is universal and never resolves with tolerance, so a stimulant laxative (senna ± docusate) is started prophylactically with the first opioid dose and titrated to a bowel movement. Avoid bulk-forming fiber in opioid-induced constipation, add an osmotic agent or a PAMORA (methylnaltrexone) for refractory cases, and always rule out impaction and bowel obstruction before escalating laxatives. Inoperable malignant bowel obstruction is managed medically with octreotide, anticholinergics, antiemetics, and corticosteroids.
Delirium, Restlessness & Anxiety
is an acute, fluctuating disturbance of attention and awareness that is very common near death. The first step is always to assess and treat reversible causes — medications, infection, uncontrolled pain, urinary retention or impaction, hypoxia, and metabolic derangements. For hyperactive delirium with agitation, haloperidol is first-line alongside non-pharmacologic measures (reorientation, a calm environment, family presence).[6]
Terminal restlessness is agitation in the actively dying — and a full bladder or impacted stool is a common, reversible cause, so check before sedating. Anxiety and spiritual distress amplify every other symptom; treat acute anxiety with a benzodiazepine while addressing the unmet psychosocial and spiritual needs underneath it.
Anorexia-Cachexia & Other Symptoms
In advanced, irreversible illness, decreased appetite and intake are a natural part of the dying process. generally do not prolong life or improve comfort at the end of life and can worsen edema, ascites, and respiratory secretions. The nursing focus is comfort and teaching the family that this is normal; corticosteroids or megestrol may transiently stimulate appetite earlier in the course.[6]
Round out the symptom toolkit: fatigue is the most common symptom in advanced illness; opioids can suppress a distressing dry cough; benzodiazepines control end-of-life seizures when the oral route is lost; pruritus is treated by its cause; and a frequent mouth-care regimen relieves the dry mouth of low intake and mouth breathing.
Checkpoint · Symptom Management
Question 1 of 10
In palliative care, which intervention is most effective for the symptomatic management of xerostomia in a patient receiving radiation therapy?
Support, Education & Advocacy
Support, education, and advocacy is roughly 21% of the exam.[1] Hospice cares for the patient and the family as the unit of care, so the CHPN tests how you communicate hard news, navigate advance care planning, support grief, and teach the caregiver. The reward here is the answer that honors the patient's autonomy and meets the family where they are.
Advance Directives, POLST & Code Status
An is a legal document any adult completes for future incapacity — a living will stating treatment preferences plus a durable power of attorney naming a health-care surrogate. A is different: it is a portable, immediately actionable set of medical orders signed by a clinician for a seriously ill patient — code status, intubation, and more — that travels across care settings.[5]
An advance directive guides future care; a POLST orders current care. When a patient lacks capacity and has no directive, most states follow a statutory surrogate hierarchy (spouse, adult child, parent, sibling), and the surrogate decides by substituted judgment — as the patient would have decided — falling back to a best-interest standard only when the patient's wishes are unknown. A DNR/Allow-Natural-Death order directs that CPR not be attempted and does not stop comfort care.
Communication & Breaking Bad News
The CHPN tests structured communication. SPIKES (Setting, Perception, Invitation, Knowledge, Empathy, Strategy/Summary) frames breaking bad news; ask-tell-ask checks understanding; and NURSE statements (Name, Understand, Respect, Support, Explore) respond to emotion. The cardinal rule: when a patient expresses strong emotion, respond to the emotion before giving more information, and allow silence so they can process.[5]
Tailor teaching to health literacy with plain language and the teach-back method, and practice cultural humility — some families prefer to protect the patient from a terminal diagnosis, so clarify the patient's own disclosure wishes rather than assume.
Grief, Bereavement & Spiritual Care
is grief felt before the death by both the patient and the family — a normal response. It is distinct from , which is persistent and impairing and warrants referral. The Kübler-Ross stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) are descriptive, not a required or linear sequence.[6]
Hospice provides bereavement support to the family for up to 13 months after the death. Spiritual care is broader than religion — it addresses meaning, hope, and connection, even for non-religious patients — and the FICA tool (Faith, Importance, Community, Address) structures a spiritual assessment. Involve chaplaincy for spiritual distress rather than treating it as depression.
Family & Caregiver Education
Teaching the caregiver is core hospice work: medication administration, symptom recognition, what to expect when the patient is dying, equipment use, and whom to call. Address family fears that opioids cause addiction or hasten death so pain is treated adequately, teach safe storage and disposal of controlled substances, and assess caregiver burden and burnout as part of the unit of care.[5]
Checkpoint · Support, Education & Advocacy
Question 1 of 10
A hospice nurse is providing education on medication management to a patient with advanced dementia and their family. What strategy is most effective to ensure comprehension and adherence?
Practice Issues
Practice issues is roughly 21% of the exam.[1] It covers the ethics of end-of-life care, the interdisciplinary team and the regulation that governs hospice, and the professional practice and self-care that sustain the nurse. The recurring exam skill is applying an ethical principle — , beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice — to a real end-of-life dilemma.
Ethics & the Principle of Double Effect
The is the most-tested ethics concept on the CHPN. It holds that an action with a good intended effect — relieving suffering — is permissible even if it carries a foreseen but unintended harm, such as a possibly hastened death, provided the act is good or neutral, the intent is symptom relief, the dose is proportionate to the symptom, and the harm is not the means to the good. It is what justifies titrating an opioid or sedative to relieve refractory symptoms near death.[6]
Other ethics essentials: withholding and withdrawing a treatment that no longer serves the patient's goals are ethically equivalent; a capacitated patient may legally choose VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking); and a nurse may exercise conscientious objection but must never abandon the patient.
Palliative Sedation vs. Euthanasia
uses sedating medication, titrated to comfort, to relieve and intolerable symptoms in an imminently dying patient — the intent is symptom relief, and it is ethically and legally accepted. It differs fundamentally from (intentionally causing death) in both intent and action: in palliative sedation the underlying disease causes death, while sedation only relieves symptoms.[6]
Medical aid in dying (legal only in some states, patient self-administered) is distinct again. The professional response to a request to hasten death is not to abandon the patient: assess the unmet physical, psychological, social, and spiritual suffering behind the request and engage the interdisciplinary team and ethics resources.
The Interdisciplinary Team & Regulation
Hospice is delivered by an — nurse, physician/medical director, social worker, chaplain, hospice aide, bereavement counselor, and volunteers — with the patient and family at the center. Under the Medicare Conditions of Participation, the IDT must review and update the plan of care at least every 15 days, and hospices must use trained volunteers and run a data-driven quality-improvement (QAPI) program.[4]
The nurse's role on the team is to provide direct care, coordinate the plan, communicate observations, and educate the patient, family, and team — reflecting the total-pain model that no single discipline can address every dimension of suffering alone.
Professional Practice & Self-Care
The CHPN explicitly tests the nurse's own well-being. , burnout, (knowing the right action but being constrained from it), and secondary traumatic stress are occupational risks in hospice, mitigated by boundaries, peer support, debriefing, and reflective self-care.[2]
Professional practice also means working to evidence-based standards (the HPNA scope and standards, the National Consensus Project guidelines), maintaining confidentiality and professional boundaries, delegating appropriately while retaining accountability, and advocating at the system level for access to quality hospice and palliative care.
Checkpoint · Practice Issues
Question 1 of 10
The principle of double effect is frequently cited to justify aggressive opioid titration at the end of life. Which condition must be satisfied for an action to be ethically permissible under this principle?
How to Use This Study Guide
Work through the guide one domain at a time. After each one, check it off in the contents to raise your exam-readiness score, then drill the same content in our free practice questions and flashcards — active recall and timed practice are what move knowledge into exam-day performance.
- Lead with patient care. Pain Management, Symptom Management, and Assessment together dominate the exam — master the WHO ladder, opioid dosing, the symptom protocols, and prognostication first.
- Memorize the high-yield rules. Opioids have no ceiling; constipation has no tolerance; dyspnea is treated with low-dose opioids; the death rattle is repositioning plus an antimuscarinic, not suctioning.
- Think comfort and goals of care. When in doubt, the comfort-focused answer that honors the patient's autonomy is usually correct — after ruling out a reversible cause.
- Don’t skip ethics and self-care. Double effect, palliative sedation, the IDT, and compassion fatigue are reliably tested in Practice Issues.
- Study to the current HPCC outline. Domain weights shift between forms — confirm the current Detailed Content Outline on the HPCC site and weight your time accordingly.
Common questions CHPN candidates search and get asked — each answered briefly and backed by an official source (HPCC, the WHO, CMS/Medicare, the National Consensus Project, or the NIH). Tap any card to test yourself.
CHPN Concept Questions
CHPN Glossary
Key CHPN terms in one place. Hover any dotted term throughout the guide for its definition; the full list is below.
- CHPN
- Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse — the HPCC specialty certification validating the knowledge a registered nurse needs to provide expert hospice and palliative care.
- HPCC
- Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center — the organization (formerly NBCHPN / the National Board for Certification of Hospice Nurses) that develops and administers the CHPN and the other hospice and palliative nursing credentials.
- HPNA
- Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association — the professional organization that sets standards and provides education for hospice and palliative nursing; HPCC is its credentialing arm.
- palliative care
- Specialized care focused on relieving the symptoms and stress of a serious illness to improve quality of life — given at any stage, alongside curative or disease-directed treatment, with no prognosis requirement.
- hospice
- A form of palliative care for patients with a prognosis of about six months or less who have chosen comfort-focused care and forgo curative treatment of the terminal illness; in the U.S. it is a defined Medicare benefit.
- total pain
- Dame Cicely Saunders' concept that a dying person's suffering has four dimensions — physical, psychological, social, and spiritual — all of which must be addressed for true relief.
- Medicare Hospice Benefit
- The Medicare Part A benefit covering hospice care related to the terminal diagnosis — interdisciplinary visits, medications, equipment, and up to 13 months of family bereavement support.
- interdisciplinary team
- The hospice IDT — nurse, physician/medical director, social worker, chaplain, hospice aide, bereavement counselor, and volunteers — with the patient and family at the center; it reviews the plan of care at least every 15 days.
- Palliative Performance Scale
- The PPS — rates functional status from 100% (fully ambulatory and well) to 0% (death) in 10% steps using ambulation, activity/disease, self-care, intake, and consciousness; a lower or falling score predicts a shorter prognosis.
- Karnofsky Performance Status
- The KPS — rates function from 100% (normal) to 0% (dead) in 10% steps; a KPS of 50% or less is a common functional threshold supporting hospice eligibility.
- prognostication
- Estimating a patient's life expectancy using functional scales (PPS, KPS), disease-specific criteria, and the trajectory of decline — the direction of change often matters more than a single score.
- WHO analgesic ladder
- The World Health Organization's three-step approach to pain: Step 1 non-opioid, Step 2 weak opioid, Step 3 strong opioid, with an adjuvant possible at any step and rescue dosing for breakthrough pain.
- opioid
- A class of strong analgesics (morphine, hydromorphone, oxycodone, fentanyl, methadone) central to palliative pain control; pure mu-agonist opioids have no ceiling dose.
- equianalgesia
- Using an equianalgesic table to convert a dose from one opioid or route to another so the new regimen gives comparable pain relief; reduce the calculated dose 25–50% for incomplete cross-tolerance when rotating opioids.
- breakthrough pain
- A transient flare of pain over an otherwise controlled baseline, treated with a short-acting rescue dose of about 10–20% of the total 24-hour opioid dose, given as needed.
- adjuvant analgesic
- A drug not primarily an analgesic that relieves specific pain types — anticonvulsants and antidepressants for neuropathic pain, corticosteroids, and bisphosphonates for bone pain.
- tolerance
- Needing a higher dose of an opioid to achieve the same effect — a normal, expected pharmacologic response, not addiction.
- physical dependence
- Withdrawal symptoms on abrupt cessation of an opioid or with an antagonist — an expected, physiologic response managed by tapering, not addiction.
- addiction
- A behavioral disease of compulsive use and loss of control despite harm; uncommon when opioids are used to treat pain, and distinct from tolerance and physical dependence.
- dyspnea
- The subjective sensation of breathlessness or air hunger; in advanced illness it is treated first-line with low-dose opioids, with oxygen only if the patient is hypoxic and a fan to the face for non-hypoxic air hunger.
- death rattle
- Noisy breathing from saliva and secretions pooling in the throat of an actively dying patient who can no longer clear them — managed with repositioning and an antimuscarinic, not deep suctioning.
- terminal delirium
- An acute, fluctuating disturbance of attention and awareness common near the end of life; treat reversible causes first, then haloperidol for hyperactive agitation alongside non-pharmacologic measures.
- anorexia-cachexia
- Decreased appetite and wasting that are a natural part of advanced dying; artificial nutrition and hydration generally do not prolong life or improve comfort and can worsen symptoms.
- advance directive
- A legal document completed by an adult for future incapacity — a living will (treatment preferences) and a durable power of attorney naming a health-care surrogate.
- POLST
- Portable, actionable medical orders (POLST/MOLST) signed by a clinician for a seriously ill patient — code status, intubation, and other interventions — that travel across care settings and are immediately actionable.
- anticipatory grief
- Grief experienced before a death actually occurs, by both the dying patient and the family, as they anticipate the coming loss; a normal response.
- complicated grief
- Persistent, impairing grief (also called prolonged grief disorder) that lasts well beyond the expected period and warrants referral, distinct from normal grief.
- principle of double effect
- The ethical principle that an act with a good intended effect (relief of suffering) is permissible despite a foreseen but unintended harmful effect, provided the intent is symptom relief, the dose is proportionate, and the harm is not the means to the good.
- palliative sedation
- Sedation titrated to comfort to relieve refractory, intolerable symptoms in an imminently dying patient; the intent is symptom relief, and it is ethically and legally accepted — distinct from euthanasia.
- euthanasia
- The act of intentionally causing a patient's death; it differs fundamentally from palliative sedation in both intent and action.
- refractory symptom
- A symptom that cannot be adequately controlled despite aggressive, tolerable treatment — the threshold that justifies palliative sedation.
- autonomy
- The ethical principle respecting a patient's right to self-determination and informed choices about their own care; alongside beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice it anchors end-of-life ethics.
- moral distress
- The distress a nurse experiences when they know the ethically right action but are constrained from taking it.
- compassion fatigue
- Emotional and physical exhaustion from caring for the suffering that erodes empathy over time — an occupational risk in hospice addressed by boundaries, support, and self-care.
CHPN Study Guide FAQ
The CHPN has 150 multiple-choice items — 135 scored items plus 15 unscored pretest items that are mixed in and indistinguishable from the scored ones — answered within a 3-hour appointment. It is delivered by computer through PSI, either at a PSI test center or by live remote proctoring.
The CHPN is reported on a scaled score from 200 to 800, and the passing cut is 500. HPCC sets that cut with a criterion-referenced modified-Angoff process — a panel of content experts rates item difficulty to define the level of competence required — and equates exam forms so 500 represents the same standard on every version. Your pass/fail result is based on the total scaled score, not on a curve.
The HPCC content outline organizes the exam into five domains: Patient Care — Assessment and Planning (about 19%), Patient Care — Pain Management (about 19%), Patient Care — Symptom Management (about 21%), Support/Education/Advocacy (about 21%), and Practice Issues (about 21%). Patient care (assessment, pain, and symptom management together) makes up roughly 60% of the exam; weights shift between forms, so study to the current HPCC outline.
You need a current, active, unrestricted RN license plus recent hospice and palliative nursing practice: at least 500 hours of hospice/palliative RN practice in the most recent 12 months, or at least 1,000 hours in the most recent 24 months, before you apply. No exam-prep course is required. Confirm the current eligibility statement in the HPCC candidate handbook.
Palliative care is symptom and quality-of-life care for anyone with a serious illness at any stage, given alongside curative treatment, with no prognosis requirement. Hospice is a form of palliative care for patients with a prognosis of about six months or less who have chosen comfort care and forgo curative treatment of the terminal illness. All hospice is palliative care, but not all palliative care is hospice.
The CHPN exam fee is about $305 for HPNA members and $455 for non-members, with a lower retest fee of about $135 (dated anchors — verify on advancingexpertcare.org). The certification is valid for four years and is renewed through HPCC's accrual-for-recertification program (a situational-judgment exercise plus practice hours and professional-development points) or by retaking the exam.
Lead with patient care. Pain Management, Symptom Management, and Assessment together dominate the exam, so master the WHO analgesic ladder, opioid dosing and equianalgesia, the major symptom protocols (dyspnea, constipation, delirium, the death rattle), and prognostication first — then drill with our free CHPN practice questions and flashcards.
Yes — the full guide, the glossary, the concept questions, the practice questions, and the flashcards are 100% free with no account required.
References
- 1.Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center (HPCC). “Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN) — Candidate Handbook & Detailed Content Outline.” HPCC / advancingexpertcare.org. ↑
- 2.Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA). “Scope and Standards of Hospice and Palliative Nursing Practice & Position Statements.” HPNA. ↑
- 3.World Health Organization. “WHO Guidelines for the Pharmacological & Radiotherapeutic Management of Cancer Pain (the analgesic ladder).” WHO. ↑
- 4.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “Medicare Hospice Benefit & Conditions of Participation (42 CFR Part 418).” CMS / Medicare.gov. ↑
- 5.National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care. “Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care (National Consensus Project, 4th ed.).” NCP. ↑
- 6.National Institutes of Health / National Library of Medicine. “StatPearls & MedlinePlus Clinical Reference (palliative and end-of-life topics).” NIH/NLM. ↑
- 101.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “Medicare Hospice Conditions of Participation — Interdisciplinary Group.” cms.gov, accessed 19 June 2026. ↑

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