Communication in Verbal Hand-Over Reports : Nurses' Experiences from in-Patients Hospital Units in Saudi Arabia : Qualitative Study

Correspondence: Haniha Alyamany Email: alyamany-haniha@hotmail.com Introduction Nurses constitute the largest group of health care providers in most countries in the world. Nurses as professionals provide care for patients in many areas of health care, from disease prevention to curative care (Oulton, 2006). Although nurses are the largest group of health care providers, many hospitals have a shortage of professional nurses which can in turn affect patients’ care. As a result of this, many countries throughout the world are striving to improve staffing levels of professional nurses in their hospitals (Buchan & Calman, 2004). Saudi Arabia is one such country which has a shortage of nursing staff. The government is now working intensively in the area of nurse education and nursing practice to improve the situation. Saudi Arabia started its own health education programmes in Riyadh in 1958. The main goal was to increase the number of trained Saudi national nurses working within the health care services (Almalki, FitzGerald, Clark, 2011). The Ministry of Health has shown that Saudi Arabian nationals represent less than one quarter of the workforce in the health care sector in Saudi Arabia (MOH 2008; WHO, 2006). Even though there is an increase in the number of graduated Saudi nurses, the majority of the nurses in Saudi Arabia are recruited from abroad, in order to cover the shortage of nurses. There are therefore many challenges faced in these multi-cultural workplaces, which include clashes of beliefs and value systems which can be different from the Saudi culture (Mebrouk, 2008). There are even challenges in the areas of communication within the health care facilities. English is the official recognised language used in the health care sector in Saudi Arabia. Most of the nurses working in the services, both Saudi and non-Saudi, have English as a second or even as a third language. This can lead to gaps in communication between nurses and Abstract