Liminality in cultural transition: applying ID-EA to advance a concept into theory-based practice

As global migration increases worldwide, nursing interventions are needed to address the effects of migration on health. The concept of liminality emerged as a pivotal concept in the situation-specific theory of well-being in refugee women experiencing cultural transition. As a relatively new concept in the discipline of nursing, liminality is explored using a method, called ID-EA, which we developed to advance a theoretical concept for application to nursing practice. Liminality in the context of cultural transition is further developed using the five steps of inquiry of the ID-EA method. The five steps are as follows: (1) inductive inquiry: qualitative research, (2) deductive inquiry: literature review, (3) synthesis of inductive and deductive inquiry, (4) evaluation inquiry, and (5) application-to-practice inquiry. The overall goal of this particular work was to develop situation-specific, theory-based interventions that facilitate cultural transitions for immigrants and refugees.