Anas Ali Alhur,1,2 Felipe Fregni,3 Muneef M Alsahmmari,1 Cristina Naqui,4 Danica Anne Sims5,6 1Department of Health Informatics, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, University of Hail, Hail, Saudi Arabia; 2Department of Health Information Management and Technology, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia; 3Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Massachusetts General Hospital and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; 4Maternity and Pediatrics Unit, Hospital General de Granollers, Barcelona, Spain; 5Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; 6Biomedical Engineering and Healthcare Technology Research Centre, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South AfricaCorrespondence: Anas Ali Alhur, Email anas.ali.alhur@gmail.comBackground: Faculty empathy, defined as perceptions of the students about the capacity of academic teaching staffâs to recognize, understand, and respond sensitively to studentsâ academic and emotional needs within non-clinical educational settings, remains underexplored in health sciences education. While empathy has been widely examined in clinical training, far less is known about how empathic behaviors enacted by faculty in classroom contexts shape studentsâ motivation, engagement, and academic identity. Thus, this study aimed to explore undergraduate health sciences studentsâ perceptions of faculty empathy, identify its impact on their academic engagement and well-being, and examine specific behaviors students perceived as empathetic or non-empathetic.Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted with 16 undergraduate students (N = 16) from four academic programs at the University of Hail, Saudi Arabia. Participants submitted reflective essays describing personal experiences with faculty empathy or its absence. Data were analyzed using Braun and Clarkeâs six-phase thematic analysis framework, following manual coding and pre-established trustworthiness strategies, including peer debriefing and audit trails.Results: Sixteen undergraduate health sciences students, representing four academic programs and diverse academic stages from first year to internship, contributed reflective essays. Analysis revealed four interrelated themes: (1) Empathy as a Catalyst for Academic Motivation, (2) The Emotional Consequences of Empathic Failure, (3) Faculty as Role Models and Academic Anchors, and (4) The Transformative Power of Supportive Communication. Students described both the empowering impact of empathetic faculty and the emotional harm caused by neglectful behaviors. Empathy fostered motivation, belonging, and self-efficacy, while its absence led to distress and disengagement.Conclusion: The findings demonstrate that faculty empathy expressed through encouragement, recognition, and respectful engagement plays a decisive role in shaping studentsâ academic experiences in non-clinical settings. Conversely, empathic failure may contribute to disengagement and emotional distress. These results underscore the need to intentionally integrate empathic practices into faculty development and institutional teaching cultures.Keywords: faculty empathy, health sciences education, student reflections, academic engagement
Alhur et al. (Tue,) studied this question.