Description/Overview: In Saudi Arabia, the health care context is rich in cultural complexity, as foreign and national nurses bring their cultural values and beliefs to their caring actions and relationships with patients. Within this context, non-Arab non-Muslim nurses find Western derived nursing models incomplete for the care of their Arab Muslim patients. Arab Muslim nurses blend the science of nursing from the Western bio-medical model with spiritual and holistic caring from their Muslim worldview. Ethnographic research on Arab Muslim nurses’ caring led to the development of the Crescent of Care nursing model (Lovering, 2008). This holistic model captures the centrality of spirituality in caring and the blending of Western nursing science. A collaborative inquiry approach was used to develop the Crescent of Care nursing model for application at the bedside within a tertiary hospital setting in Saudi Arabia; to guide the practice of foreign and national nurses in the care of Arab Muslim patients in Saudi Arabia and other health care contexts; and to bridge Western and Arab Muslim nursing care practices.

Learner Objective #1: Reflect on use of ethnographic and collaborative inquiry research methodologies to develop and implement a nursing model for application in an Arab Muslim healthcare setting

Learner Objective #2: Translate the interrelated professional, cultural and spiritual components of the Crescent of Care nursing model into the multicultural context