Refining Bronfenbrenner’s Model to Develop and Promote the Nursing Specialist Role in Saudi Arabia

Almost a quarter of children in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) are diagnosed with asthma, and it is the third most common reason for hospital admissions, representing a major public health challenge. This article review is a chapter from PhD thesis that identified the perspective of health professional and patients about the nursing role during pediatric asthma management based Burawoy’s extended case method. A qualitative paradigm was deemed to be most appropriate to fully grasp the meanings that the participants attach to the phenomenon of childhood asthma management. Then, this review described a a new Nursing Role Development Model as a way of conceptualising the nursing role generally, in order to recognize the importance of multi-level environments as well as interactions between the levels as key factors influencing development which may applied to the field in Saudi Arabia. The impact of the clinical nurse specialist enhances patient care and promotes professional nursing practice. This article provides a review of the asthma management and its challenges, a description of multifactor such as professional power, policy, culture and gender roles on stakeholders’ perceptions of nurses in general and asthma nurse specialists in particular, and a discussion of opportunities and potential threats to future growth of the clinical nurse specialist role.