The Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association [formerly the US Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association (USPRA)] retained a professional testing company that specializes in the development and administration of licensure and certification examinations to assist in the development, administration and scoring of the certification examination for psychiatric rehabilitation practitioners. The major steps of examination development include analysis of the responsibilities of psychiatric rehabilitation practitioners, specification of a blueprint for the test, writing, reviewing, referencing, and validating questions, assembly of the examination, and deciding the score required to pass the test.
Before a content-valid examination is developed, the knowledge and skills needed to be a competent professional in the field must be determined. The process for identifying these competency areas is a role delineation, or job analysis, the outcome of which serves as a blueprint for exam development. In order to maintain the relevance and credibility of the examination over time, the role delineation must be periodically reviewed and updated. The Certification Commission updates its Role Delineation (originally completed in 2001) in multi-phase projects encompassing review and updates to the CPRP practice domains, examination content outline (or blueprint) as well as the item bank. This project is completed every 5 - 7 years. The latest Role Delineation study was conducted in 2007.
The CPRP examination is designed for practitioners who work primarily within the adult behavioral health system. The exam consists of 150 multiple choice items. All items test your knowledge and skills of the following psychiatric rehabilitation competencies:
The competencies of a psychiatric rehabilitation practitioner are based on research conducted through role delineation studies (job task analysis) of certified individuals currently working in the field. These studies are regularly conducted to ensure current practices are reflected in the exam. All items included on the exam reference published study materials. A complete exam blueprint is available on the
Downloadable Forms and Documents page.
The exam is administered three times each year, in March, June and October at various testing sites worldwide. Each administration is available for a period of two weeks, allowing candidates the flexibility to schedule their exam around their home and work life.
