Cultural and Religious Educational Needs of Overseas Nurses Working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

A competent transcultural health care service has been identified as essential for the delivery of safe health care in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and indeed internationally. Delivery of contextually informed educational programs to new employees forms an important component of achieving this requirement. Nurse educators have an essential role in identifying the cultural and religious knowledge needed by new employees and in designing programs to address these needs. The objective of this article was to explore the cultural and religious educational needs of overseas nurses working with Muslim patients in the KSA and the UAE as derived from the experience of nurses themselves. Written narratives from nurses employed to work primarily with Muslim nurses were analyzed using a qualitative descriptive methodology. In the UAE and the KSA context, and perhaps for nurses working with Muslim-Arabic patients worldwide, the culturally and religiously specific topics that need to be a component of preemployment education include the basic Islamic principles (5 daily prayers, Ramadan fasting, Zamzam water, and time management skills to accommodate religious practices within care); Kinship and Social Factors (family structure, gender-related issues, and social support system); and Basic Arabic language skills.

The cultural competence learning needs of migrant nurses: A literature review

“…People who move to another country for work often experience culture shock, which is described as "anxiety that results from losing the familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse, and their substitution by other cues that are strange". [13] Culture shock is associated with a lack of knowledge about a culture such as its language, religion, food, family, and work life, [14] which may result in feelings of helplessness and depression. [13] Four main themes related to the cultural competence learning needs of migrant nurses emerged from this literature review: communication, religion and spirituality, customs, and work environment.…”

“…Verbal and non-verbal communication can be positive or negative and, therefore, produce either positive or negative outcomes in the nursing workplace. When migrant nurses commence work in a foreign environment, they are often perceived as unsafe [14] and less clinically able due to their lack of effective communication skills. [13,[15][16][17][18] As a result, migrant nurses feel disempowered.…”

Nurses’ job satisfaction during the mass gathering of the Hajj 2018 in Saudi Arabia

“…Previous research in Saudi nurses indicates that a range of personal and organizational factors correlate with job dissatisfaction including low pay, high turnover rate, stress, burnout and workload (Al-Dossary et al 2012;Alharbi et al 2016), whilst religion and culture support job satisfaction (Alotaibi et al 2016). Indeed, understanding Islamic values and cultural traditions are important components of effective care when nursing Muslim patients (Albaqawi et al 2019;Al-Yateem et al 2015;Atkinson 2015). Arguably, as all nurses working during Hajj are Muslims, the nurses in this sample understood patients' religious beliefs, were able to deliver culturally sensitive health care and were appreciative of the spiritual setting in which they were working; conceivably, this could have positively affected nurses' level of satisfaction.…”

The lived experience of expatriate nurses providing end of life care to Muslim patients in a Muslim country: An integrated review of the literature

“…In the Middle East region, several countries have undergone rapid changes, moving from a nomadic culture to one that has the infrastructure and healthcare systems consistent with those in the western world (Al-Yateem et al, 2015;Hawkins, 2015). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and United Arab Emirates rely heavily on expatriate nurses to fulfil their workforce (Aboshaiqah, 2016;El-Haddad, 2006).…”

“…For the non-Muslim expatriate nurse working in a Muslim country; physical, psychological, spiritual, and cultural safety issues for the nurse, patients, families, and their communities often arise due to misunderstandings in communication and behaviours (Aboshaiqah et al, 2017;Almutairi & Rodney, 2013;El-Amouri & O'Neill, 2011). The challenges for nurses include high levels of stress (Halligan, 2006), and for those with no prior experience of Muslim patients, cultural shock can be expected (Al-Yateem et al, 2015). Nurses who are stressed and suffering physically and psychologically from culture shock may develop negative attitudes and feelings toward life and their clinical work, which in turn could affect their caregiving abilities and the quality of care delivered to patients (Lu et al, 2011;Peterson et al, 2010;Portoghese et al, 2014;Thurston & Waterworth, 2012).…”