Faculty perceptions of institutional incentives and non-technical competency integration in health professions education: a national cross-sectional survey in Saudi Arabia

Vollständiger Abstract

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Abstract Background Non-technical competencies are widely identified as important for health workforce readiness, yet their integration into health professions curricula remains uneven. To our knowledge, no empirical study has directly examined whether faculty perceptions of institutional incentives are associated with the integration of non-technical competencies in health professions curricula. Methods We conducted a national cross-sectional survey of health sciences faculty across Saudi Arabia between 2 and 27 October 2025. A self-administered electronic questionnaire, distributed by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties to a random sample of 13,800 practitioners, assessed perceptions of institutional incentive structures (teaching-promotion relevance; perceived research dominance), self-reported integration of five non-technical competency domains (communication; teamwork; leadership and management; interpersonal; customer service skills), and institutional supports and barriers. A composite integration score (mean of five items; Cronbach’s α = 0.87) was analysed using non-parametric tests and multivariable linear regression adjusted for academic rank, institution type, experience, and role load. Inferential analyses were conducted using an artificial intelligence platform that generates and executes Python code. Results A total of 537 faculty completed the survey (3.9% of 13,800 invitations sent). Faculty who perceived teaching performance as relevant to promotion reported higher competency integration after multivariable adjustment, whereas perceiving research as more highly rewarded than teaching was not significantly associated with integration. The model explained approximately 12% of the variance in integration. Integration was higher wherever teaching was perceived as valued, whether or not research was also perceived as rewarded, and lowest where research was valued but teaching was not. Professional development access was the strongest correlate of integration, whereas perceived administrative workload was not significantly associated with integration. Conclusions In this national cross-sectional survey, teaching recognition and professional development access were the institutional factors most strongly associated with self-reported competency integration; perceived research dominance was not. The cross-sectional design, self-reported measures, and low response rate mean that direction of effect cannot be established. These findings nonetheless suggest that adding teaching recognition alongside existing research recognition, rather than substituting one for the other, is the direction most worth testing.