Checked 25 September 2026. From Prometric's Kuwait licensing-exam references PDF, which says the "blueprint content, percentages of questions and number of attempts allowed are subjected to change upon department's review".
Kuwait's Ministry of Health licenses nurses in the private sector through its Medical Licensing Department, and its computer-based exams run at Prometric centres worldwide. Prometric publishes the specification in a reference PDF that covers nine exams — and the Registered Nurse (RN) exam is the only nursing one. That document is the source for this guide. It settles several numbers that coaching sites print wrongly, from the question count to the pass mark.
Prometric Kuwait licensing-exam references PDF.
The format
| Item | Prometric's Kuwait PDF |
|---|---|
| Exam | Registered Nurse (RN) |
| Content | "150 Multiple Choice Question – Electronic computer based" |
| Duration | "170 Minutes with 10 minutes break in between" |
| Attempts | "3 attempts, minimum 6 weeks apart between each attempt" |
| Pass score | 60% |
| Where | Prometric testing centres globally |
The PDF does not say whether the 10-minute break sits inside the 170 minutes or is added to them. If it is inside, you have 160 minutes of testing — 64 seconds a question; if it is added, 68 seconds. Pace yourself on 64 and treat the rest as margin. The PDF does not state the exam language, negative marking or unscored items; the references are all English-language textbooks. It also warns that the blueprint, the percentages and the number of attempts are "subjected to change upon department's review", so check the current PDF before you book rather than relying on a copy saved months earlier.
Where other pages get this wrong
The Kuwait RN exam is 150 questions and needs 60% — not 70–100 questions, and not 55% or 65%.
Commonly published instead: "70–100 MCQs in 2 hours", "pass mark 55% (about 85 correct)" and "65% for most professions".
Prometric's Kuwait references PDF gives 150 questions, "170 Minutes with 10 minutes break in between", and a 60% pass score for the Registered Nurse. The 65% figure belongs to the physician Registrar exams in the same PDF (Senior physicians need 70%). And 55% of 150 would be 82.5, not 85.
The blueprint
Prometric Kuwait PDF. Percentages are our arithmetic on 150.
| Section | Sub-section | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing Fundamentals (30) | Fundamentals of nursing | 12 |
| Physical assessment | 9 | |
| Pharmacology | 6 | |
| Clinical nutrition | 3 | |
| Adult Nursing (60) | Medical nursing | 15 |
| Surgical nursing | 15 | |
| Community nursing | 12 | |
| Critical care nursing | 11 | |
| Mental / psychiatric nursing | 7 | |
| Maternal-Child Nursing (45) | Maternity nursing | 17 |
| Pediatric medical | 12 | |
| Pediatric surgical | 7 | |
| Neonatal nursing | 6 | |
| Gynecology | 3 | |
| Nursing Management and Leadership (15) | Quality and safe patient care at the frontline | 6 |
| Resources to support and coordinate patient care | 3 | |
| Nursing teams and interprofessional relations | 3 | |
| Nursing informatics for safe and legal care | 3 |
All 18 sub-sections and their item counts as Prometric lists them (the PDF prints "Clinical of nutrition" and a longer name for the informatics item). They add up to 30, 60, 45 and 15 — 150 in total.
Three details are worth noticing. Adult Nursing is 40% of the paper, and it includes community nursing (12 questions) and mental health nursing (7) — topics many candidates file elsewhere and under-revise. Maternity nursing alone is 17 questions, the largest single sub-section after medical and surgical nursing. And pharmacology is only 6 questions as a sub-section, though drug questions also appear inside clinical scenarios across the paper.
What each section covers
| Section | In practice |
|---|---|
| Nursing Fundamentals (30) | Nursing process and basic care, vital signs and physical assessment, medication administration and safety, nutrition — the base every clinical question assumes |
| Adult Nursing (60) | Care of adults with medical and surgical conditions across body systems, critical and emergency care, community and public-health nursing, and mental-health nursing |
| Maternal-Child Nursing (45) | Antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care, newborn care, childhood illness and paediatric surgery, and common gynaecological conditions |
| Management and Leadership (15) | Delegation and coordination of care, quality and patient safety, teamwork and communication, and documentation and informatics |
Section and sub-section names are Prometric's; the descriptions are ours, drawn from the sub-section titles and the books Prometric lists for each section.
Why the same PDF confuses so many people
| Exam in the same PDF | Pass score | Other detail |
|---|---|---|
| Registered Nurse (RN) | 60% | 150 questions, 170 min, 3 attempts |
| General Practitioner (GENPR) | 60% | Physician exam |
| Specialist physician exams (e.g. internal medicine, critical care, obstetrics) | Registrar 65%, Senior 70% | Physician grades |
| Anaesthesia | Registrar/Senior marks | 190 minutes |
| Ophthalmology | Registrar/Senior marks | 2 attempts |
| Lab Technician | 60% | 150 questions, 170 min, 3 attempts |
From Prometric's Kuwait references PDF, which covers nine exams in one document. The "Critical Care" and "Obstetrics & Gynecology" exams in it are physician exams, not nursing specialties. Many wrong nursing figures online are physician figures from this same PDF.
The same blueprint as Saudi Arabia's SNLE
Kuwait from Prometric's PDF (our percentages on 150 items); Saudi SNLE from SCFHS's blueprint.
The four sections and their weights are identical to Saudi Arabia's nursing licensure exam (SNLE), which makes preparation for one largely preparation for the other. The formats differ — SCFHS's SNLE applicant guide gives 200 questions and a pass mark of 500 on a 200–800 scale — but the content map is the same.
The official book list
| Section | Books (Prometric PDF) |
|---|---|
| Nursing Fundamentals | Timby's Fundamental Nursing Skills and Concepts (12th) and workbook; Kozier & Erb's Fundamentals of Nursing (10th); Bates' Nursing Guide to Physical Examination (2nd); Pharmacology: A Patient-Centered Nursing Process Approach (9th); Nutrition Essentials for Nursing Practice (9th) |
| Adult Nursing | Brunner & Suddarth's Medical-Surgical Nursing (14th) and handbook; Lewis's Medical-Surgical Nursing (11th); Perry & Potter's Clinical Nursing Skills (9th/10th); Urden's Critical Care Nursing (9th); Emergency and Trauma Care for Nurses (3rd); Morton's Critical Care Nursing (11th); community and public-health nursing texts; psychiatric nursing texts (Boyd, Videbeck) |
| Maternal-Child Nursing | Murray & McKinney, Maternal-Newborn and Women's Health (7th); Ricci, Maternity, Newborn and Women's Health (5th); Wong's Essentials of Pediatric Nursing (9th); Wong's Nursing Care of Infants and Children (11th) |
| Management and Leadership | Quality and Safety in Nursing (2nd); Essentials of Nursing Research (9th); Marquis & Huston, Leadership Roles and Management Functions (10th); Informatics and Nursing (6th) |
Grouped as the PDF groups them; editions as printed. No Indian textbook appears on the list. For most Indian nurses, Brunner & Suddarth and Wong's are the most familiar anchors.
Coming from an Indian nursing curriculum
An Indian B.Sc or GNM covers most of this blueprint, but the weighting and the style differ. Community health nursing, which Indian programmes teach in depth, maps onto a 12-question sub-section; psychiatric nursing onto 7. What catches candidates is the management section — 15 questions on delegation, quality and safety, teamwork and informatics — and questions framed around international practice and priorities rather than local protocols. Reading one listed international text per section, alongside your own notes, closes most of the gap. The eight-week plan in this series is built on the sub-section counts.
Who the exam is for
Prometric's page names the sponsor as the MOH Medical Licensing Department, which "regulate[s] the process of licensing and the practice in the private sector" and issues health licences "of all kinds … except pharmacy". It does not mention nurses by name; the RN exam's presence in its PDF is what ties nursing to it. Kuwait's own online-services pages for nursing licences do not mention a Prometric exam at all, and MOH's page for hiring resident nurses mentions only "a written exam and interview". So the safe reading is: a nurse applying for a private-sector licence should expect the Prometric RN exam, but confirm what your employer or recruiter's route requires. Our licence-routes guide sets the three routes out.
Practise it, don't just read it
Adult Nursing is 60 of the 150 questions. The medical-surgical quizzes are the place to start.
The ProSyllabus Kuwait MOH nursing library has topic quizzes for Fundamentals of Nursing, Medical-Surgical Nursing: Cardiovascular and Respiratory, Medical-Surgical Nursing: Renal, Endocrine and Gastrointestinal, Pharmacology for Nurses, Maternal and Child Health Nursing, Critical Care and Emergency Nursing, Infection Prevention and Control and Professional Practice, Ethics and Kuwait Health Regulations. Each question comes with an explanation.
How many questions are in the Kuwait MOH nursing exam?
150 multiple-choice questions, computer-based. The duration is given as "170 Minutes with 10 minutes break in between".
What is the passing score for the Kuwait nursing exam?
60% for the Registered Nurse exam, according to Prometric's Kuwait references PDF.
How many attempts are allowed in the Kuwait nursing exam?
Three attempts, at least six weeks apart. The PDF does not say "per year", and it does not say what happens after a third fail.
What is the Kuwait RN exam blueprint?
Nursing Fundamentals 30, Adult Nursing 60, Maternal-Child Nursing 45 and Management and Leadership 15 questions, with 18 sub-sections.
Is there an exam for practical nurses or midwives in Kuwait?
Prometric's Kuwait PDF lists only the Registered Nurse exam among nursing exams; we found no Prometric exam for practical nurses, midwives or specialty nurses.
Which books are on the Kuwait nursing exam list?
International nursing texts grouped by section — among them Kozier & Erb and Timby for fundamentals, Brunner & Suddarth and Lewis for adult nursing, Wong's and Ricci for maternal-child nursing, and Marquis & Huston for management.
Is the Kuwait nursing exam the same as the Saudi SNLE?
The content map is the same — the four sections carry the same 20/40/30/10 weights — but the formats differ: Kuwait's RN exam is 150 questions at 60%, the SNLE 200 questions with a scaled pass mark.
Is there a critical care nursing exam in Kuwait?
Not as a nursing exam in Prometric's PDF. Its "Critical Care" exam is a physician exam; critical care nursing is an 11-question sub-section of the RN exam's Adult Nursing section.
What is the Kuwait nursing exam fee?
No official fee is published in Prometric's PDF or on its Kuwait page; coaching sites quote figures that contradict each other. The fee is shown when you book.
More in this series
- Kuwait nursing licence: three routes, eligibility, fees
- Indian nurses to Kuwait: emigration clearance and 2025 rules
- Kuwait nursing exam: myths vs official facts
- Kuwait nursing exam: 8-week study plan
- Kuwait MOH nursing notice board — official updates
- DHA vs Kuwait vs Abu Dhabi nursing exams compared
- Gulf nursing licences compared: Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain
Sources
- official — Prometric — Kuwait licensing exam references and blueprints (PDF)
- official — Prometric — Ministry of Health Kuwait
- official — Kuwait Government Online — professional nursing licence, private sector (archived Jun 2026)
- official — Kuwait MOH — Criteria to Apply for Nursing Job (archived)
official = a document published by the conducting body. reported = a news or coaching site we could not check against an original. Where sources disagree this page says so rather than picking one.
