DHA GP Exam Topics 2026: Syllabus and High-Yield Study Priorities

The DHA General Practice assessment tests broad, safe clinical decision-making rather than isolated textbook recall. Preparation should cover the complete official content outline, then give additional revision time to common chronic diseases, acute presentations, emergencies, pediatrics, women’s health, preventive care, and primary-care management.

DHA GP exam snapshot

The DHA General Practice assessment is delivered as computer-based testing through Prometric. DHA releases the official result through Sheryan as Pass or Fail. The current professional-assessment manual states that the CBT result is uploaded to Sheryan within two working days and that candidates do not receive the numerical score or a detailed topic review from DHA.

For eligibility, licensing, DataFlow, booking, attempts, and post-exam steps, use the complete DHA GP Exam Guide 2026.

Official DHA General Practice content areas

The current public DHA CBT guide lists the following General Practice coverage areas:

• Chronic diseases
• Acute and common medical problems
• Common pediatric problems
• Women’s health
• Emergency problems
• Common surgical problems
• Common psychiatric problems
• Common eye and ENT problems
• Common dermatological problems
• Basic epidemiology and evidence-based medicine concepts
• Family medicine concepts
• Screening and periodic health examination

Practical study-priority map

1. Adult medicine and chronic diseases

This is the broadest revision area. Do not study it as a collection of rare specialist syndromes. Focus on problems a GP must recognize, treat, monitor, or refer.

Cardiovascular medicine

• Hypertension diagnosis, confirmation, treatment, resistant hypertension, and hypertensive emergencies.
• Stable coronary disease, acute coronary syndrome, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and anticoagulation.
• Syncope, palpitations, murmurs, peripheral arterial disease, and venous thromboembolism.
• ECG recognition of common and dangerous patterns.

Respiratory medicine

• Asthma diagnosis, control assessment, acute exacerbation, inhaler strategy, and stepwise management.
• COPD diagnosis, exacerbations, smoking cessation, oxygen indications, and vaccination.
• Pneumonia, tuberculosis suspicion, pulmonary embolism, pleural disease, and lung-cancer red flags.

Endocrine, renal, and metabolic disease

• Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, drug selection, monitoring, complications, DKA, and hypoglycemia.
• Thyroid disease, adrenal emergencies, obesity, dyslipidemia, and electrolyte disorders.
• Acute kidney injury, chronic kidney disease, urinary abnormalities, nephrotoxic drugs, and referral criteria.

Gastroenterology, hematology, neurology, and infection

• Dyspepsia, peptic ulcer disease, GI bleeding, inflammatory bowel disease, liver disease, and jaundice.
• Anemia patterns, bleeding disorders, thrombocytopenia, anticoagulant complications, and malignancy warning signs.
• Headache, seizure, stroke/TIA, dizziness, neuropathy, weakness, delirium, and cognitive decline.
• Common infections, antimicrobial selection, sepsis recognition, travel-related disease, and infection-control principles.

2. Emergency and acute-care topics

Emergency questions reward correct sequencing. The answer is often the immediate action that prevents harm—not the final diagnosis or definitive specialist treatment.

• Airway, breathing, circulation, shock, sepsis, and anaphylaxis.
• Acute coronary syndrome, arrhythmia, hypertensive emergency, and acute heart failure.
• Severe asthma, COPD exacerbation, pulmonary embolism, and respiratory failure.
• Stroke, status epilepticus, meningitis, altered mental status, and acute severe headache.
• DKA, hyperosmolar state, hypoglycemia, adrenal crisis, and dangerous electrolyte abnormalities.
• Trauma, burns, poisoning, overdose, heat illness, and acute abdominal emergencies.

3. Common pediatric problems

• Growth and development, feeding, failure to thrive, and developmental red flags.
• Fever by age group, sepsis, meningitis, respiratory distress, and dehydration.
• Bronchiolitis, croup, asthma, pneumonia, otitis media, and common childhood infections.
• Diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, constipation, urinary infection, and intussusception.
• Neonatal jaundice, seizures, congenital heart clues, and child safeguarding.
• Vaccination principles and contraindications.

Pay attention to age-specific normal values, drug safety, fluid calculations, and thresholds for urgent referral.

4. Women’s health

• Preconception care, folic acid, antenatal screening, medication safety, and common pregnancy symptoms.
• Early-pregnancy bleeding, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, hyperemesis, and pregnancy-related emergencies.
• Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, gestational diabetes, reduced fetal movement, and labor red flags.
• Contraceptive choice, contraindications, emergency contraception, and postpartum care.
• Abnormal uterine bleeding, amenorrhea, pelvic pain, vaginitis, PID, and menopause.
• Cervical and breast screening principles.

5. Common surgical and orthopedic problems

• Appendicitis, cholecystitis, bowel obstruction, pancreatitis, hernia, and GI bleeding.
• Acute urinary retention, renal colic, testicular torsion, and hematuria.
• Fractures, dislocations, back pain, septic arthritis, cauda equina syndrome, and compartment syndrome.
• Wound care, abscess management, postoperative complications, and surgical infection.

Questions often test when conservative treatment is appropriate and when urgent imaging, admission, or surgical referral is required.

6. Psychiatry, ENT, ophthalmology, and dermatology

Psychiatry

• Depression, anxiety, panic disorder, psychosis, bipolar disorder, substance use, and insomnia.
• Suicide-risk assessment, capacity, delirium versus dementia, and medication adverse effects.

ENT and ophthalmology

• Otitis, sinusitis, sore throat, vertigo, epistaxis, hearing loss, and airway red flags.
• Red eye, visual loss, glaucoma, retinal emergencies, ocular trauma, and contact-lens complications.

Dermatology

• Eczema, psoriasis, acne, urticaria, fungal disease, bacterial skin infection, and scabies.
• Drug eruptions, melanoma warning signs, blistering disease, cellulitis, and necrotizing infection.

7. Screening, prevention, epidemiology, and family medicine

• Risk-based screening, periodic health review, vaccination, smoking cessation, obesity counseling, and cardiovascular prevention.
• Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, likelihood concepts, absolute risk, relative risk, and number needed to treat.
• Study designs, common biases, confidence intervals, and interpretation of evidence.
• Continuity of care, shared decision-making, safety-netting, referral, follow-up, polypharmacy, and multimorbidity.
• Professionalism, confidentiality, informed consent, communication, medication safety, and patient safety.

How to study each DHA GP topic

1. Take a baseline diagnostic: use a mixed timed set before deciding how many days each specialty needs.
2. Build an illness script: presentation, risk factors, key findings, differential diagnosis, test, first-line treatment, complication, and referral threshold.
3. Practise clinical MCQs: answer questions immediately after revision and record why each wrong option is wrong.
4. Track errors by mechanism: knowledge gap, missed clue, guideline confusion, unsafe sequencing, or time pressure.
5. Repeat weak concepts: revisit failed concepts after 48–72 hours and again during the final week.
6. Use mixed timed blocks: move from subject-based practice to full 150-question simulations.

How many MCQs should you complete daily?

There is no evidence-based universal target such as 100 questions every day. Use a sustainable target that allows full review. For many working doctors, 30–60 carefully reviewed questions are more valuable than 100 rushed questions. Increase volume during the final phase only after accuracy and reasoning are stable.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• DHA Healthcare Professional Licensing Assessment CBT Guideline
• DHA Manual for Professional Assessment
• UAE Professional Qualification Requirements 2025
• DHA Mode of Exam per Specialty
• Official Prometric DHA Program Page