Zikun Liu

Intrauterine device (IUD), as a long-acting reversible contraceptive, has been widely used around the world. In China, studies show that the top three contraceptive methods among married women of r...

1. In recent years, the healthcare industry has undergone a profound transformation driven by the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). One of the most significant developments in th...

Background: Chronic illness disrupts everyday routines, social roles, and sense of self, particularly among young individuals undergoing identity formation. With the expansion of digital media, social platforms have become key sites where patients narrate illness experiences, negotiate stigma, and seek support. However, such processes remain underexplored in non-Western, collectivist contexts. Objective: This study examines how young Chinese individuals with diabetes construct illness narratives and negotiate identity in digital environments. Methods: This study uses a narrative analysis approach, combining inductive thematic coding with culturally and critically informed interpretation. A total of 303 narrative posts were collected from RedNote, a Chinese social media platform characterized by diary-like user-generated content. The dataset includes both text-based and video-based posts, capturing longitudinal and first-person accounts of living with diabetes. Results: In total, 4 distinct narrative types were identified. The chaos narrative captures experiences of cognitive dissonance, emotional breakdown, and disruption of daily routines following diagnosis, often accompanied by guilt toward family members and anxiety over future uncertainty. The stigma narrative reflects social withdrawal, concealment of illness, and perceived discrimination in intimate relationships and employment contexts, highlighting the role of externally imposed social judgment. The resilience narrative illustrates processes of self-acceptance, disciplined self-management, and the integration of illness into everyday life through routinized practices such as blood glucose monitoring and dietary regulation. The solidarity narrative emphasizes the importance of familial care and digitally mediated peer support, where users exchange practical knowledge, emotional encouragement, and collective identity markers, transforming isolation into shared experience. Across these narratives, illness is not only experienced as disruption but also actively reinterpreted through culturally embedded values such as familial responsibility and collective belonging. Conclusions: This study advances illness narrative research by demonstrating how digital platforms mediate culturally specific forms of meaning-making among young patients with chronic illness. It extends the concept of biographical disruption by conceptualizing it as a dynamic and relational process shaped by digital storytelling, familial expectations, and peer interaction. The findings highlight the importance of culturally sensitive and platform-aware approaches to health communication and digital patient support.

BACKGROUND Chronic illness often disrupts individuals’ everyday lives and sense of self, particularly among young patients navigating identity formation. In the context of expanding digital media, online platforms have become important spaces where patients articulate illness experiences and seek support, yet how these processes unfold in non-Western contexts remains underexplored. OBJECTIVE This study investigates how young Chinese diabetics negotiate their experiences of diabetes, and reconstruct their identities in response to chronic illness in digital spaces. Methods: A thematic analysis was conducted on 303 narrative posts from RedNote, a Chinese social media platform featuring intimate, user-generated storytelling. METHODS A thematic analysis was conducted on 303 narrative posts from RedNote, a Chinese social media platform featuring intimate, user-generated storytelling. RESULTS Four narrative types were identified: chaos (cognitive dissonance and disordered life), stigma (social withdrawal and discrimination), resilience (emotional fortitude and self-routinization), and solidarity (familial solidarity and reciprocal digital community). CONCLUSIONS These narratives reveal diverse strategies through which young diabetics manage disruption and regain agency. The study extends biographical disruption theory by conceptualizing disruption as a dynamic, relational process of digital re-storying, offering insights for culturally sensitive health communication and online patient support.

Cervical erosion has historically been perceived as a severe gynecological condition in China, with its evocative nomenclature conjuring images of decay and moral transgression. Despite recent terminological revisions, the condition remains deeply stigmatized and is frequently exploited within a profit-driven healthcare market. This study employed a critical approach to analyze illness narratives related to cervical erosion as expressed on Sina Weibo, China's preeminent microblogging platform. Our findings extended Frank's illness narrative typology by uncovering a spectrum of narratives, including compliance, shame, resentment, and awakening. While compliance and shame narratives tended to reinforce biomedical authority and perpetuate structural inequities, the emergence of resentment and awakening narratives exposed instances of structural gaslighting and nascent embodied resistance among women. Ultimately, this study illuminates how traditional Chinese cultural values and neoliberal medicalization jointly shape women's health experiences, offering critical insights for fostering more transparent and culturally responsive healthcare practices.

In the past, cervical erosion has long been perceived as a gynecological disease. However, today's medical diagnostics would rather see it as a normal physiological condition than a pathological one. Despite this shift in medical understanding, the term "cervical erosion" continues to hold significant cultural resonance in China, where it is not only a medical issue but also involves various powers using disease as a means to control women's bodies. Drawing on the theory of body politics, this paper examines Chinese women's experiences with cervical erosion to uncover the complex process in which women lose control of their bodies and subject them to a variety of external powers. We analyze illness metaphors in 57,673 posts and 242 illness narratives, which are collected from Sina Weibo, the premier social media platform in China. The analysis identifies four primary metaphors about cervical erosion: "repulsive rotten apple," "peril of deviant sexual behaviors," "stagnant cradle," and "hidden crisis." By examining how these metaphors are intricately woven into illness narratives, we uncover various practices of body politics, including pathologizing, moralizing, instrumentalizing, technopolizing, and commercializing, which jointly contribute to the multifaceted process of alienation that women's bodies endure.

The increasing prevalence of AI chatbots in healthcare has revolutionized patient care by enhancing accessibility and efficiency while raising critical ethical and privacy concerns. Drawn from the O-S-O-R model, this study utilizes survey data to reveal the complex underlying mechanism from perceived health stigma (O1) to the preference for AI chatbots over doctors (R). Specifically, we theorized the mediating roles of self-disclosure to AI chatbots (S), emotional efficacy, AI privacy concern, and trust in AI chatbots (O2). Structural equation modeling results showed that perceived health stigma significantly motivated individuals to self-disclose to AI chatbots. Self-disclosure enhanced emotional self-efficacy and heightened AI privacy concerns, which respectively facilitated and undermined trust in AI chatbots; trust, in turn, positively influenced a preference for chatbots over doctors. This study extends the O-S-O-R model to human-computer interaction, elucidating how perceived health stigma influences preferences for AI chatbots over doctors.