Torment, Adaptation, and Transcendence: Exploring Chinese Parents’ Online Narratives of Juvenile Diabetes and Cultural Constraints

The growing prevalence of young children's diabetes in China is exerting an increasingly severe impact on affected families. This study selected 14 sample accounts from the Xiaohongshu platform, where parents documented the daily lives of their diabetic children. Guided by Communicated Narrative Sense-Making theory, a reflexive thematic analysis was conducted, revealing four key, interconnected themes that shape the parental experience: the disruption and reconstruction of self-identity due to psychological challenges and the ongoing struggle for self-preservation; the strains and realignments within family life, encompassing the complexities of parent-child relationships, marital adjustments, and the reevaluation of familial roles; and the broader social context, where parents grapple with dual pressures of adhering to predetermined life paths while managing the economic and healthcare challenges associated with their child's condition. This study advances Communicated Narrative Sense-Making theory by foregrounding online public narratives as sites of parental identity reconstruction shaped by Confucian-Taoist sociocultural constraints, and informs healthcare practices for better supporting diabetic young children and their families.