OIIQ exam September 2026: what the blueprint measures, and how to use the days left

The September 2026 OIIQ professional examination takes place on **Tuesday 29 September 2026**. For the venue, the registration confirmation and the timetable on the day, the OIIQ's own convocation page is the only source to trust — check it rather than any preparation site, this one included. What follows is the part a preparation site can actually help with: what the exam measures, and what that implies for the days you have left.

Only 17.2% of the exam rewards knowing things

The blueprint splits the questions by cognitive level: Judgement and decision: 48.7% Analysis and interpretation: 35.3% Knowledge: 17.2% More than four fifths of the exam asks you to weigh, prioritise and decide. Fewer than one question in five is answered by remembering a fact. That single distribution explains why re-reading course notes disappoints so reliably in the final weeks: re-reading trains the 17%.

What it asks you to do

Intervene: 54.3% Assess: 38.8% Ensure continuity of care: 6.9% Intervening is the majority, but assessing usually decides the answer: choose the wrong assessment and every intervention after it is wrong with it.

Where the situations come from

Medicine and surgery: 62.5% Gerontology and geriatrics: 12.5% Mental health and psychiatry: 12.5% Maternal and child health: 12.5% Behind those weights the blueprint names 131 themes, distributed as 53 in medicine, 32 in surgery, 17 in gerontology, 16 in mental health, 7 in maternal and child health and 6 cross-cutting. The surgical ones, for instance, run by type of surgery: abdominal, gynaecological, neurological, orthopaedic.

The items that come back every time

Nursing care plan (PTI): 6 occurrences Restraints and protective measures: 3 Dose and flow-rate calculation: 3 Population diversity and equity: 3 Wound care and dressings: 2 Cultural safety: 2 Six appearances for the care plan alone. If one subject has to be solid on the 29th, the blueprint has named it for you.

What to do with the days that remain

Stop covering ground. In the final stretch the return comes from three things: **Measure, once.** Two or three full clinical situations, without preparation, to find where your mistakes cluster. A domain that feels uncomfortable is not necessarily a domain you fail. **Repair two domains, not six.** One domain properly worked beats six skimmed, and the blueprint tells you which weigh most. **Make the recurring items non-negotiable.** The care plan, restraints, dose calculation. They come back whatever the situation. The last two days: no new material, and do not stay up the night before. Fatigue costs more marks than any topic you could still revise.

Try the format

Three complete clinical situations are open without an account, with the reasoning behind every answer. Fifteen minutes will tell you where you stand against the distribution above.