Peking University Digital Humanities Special Project
Peking University Health Science Center, Peking University School of Foreign Languages, Peking University School of Software and Microelectronics
Funding: 100,000 RMB
Project Duration: Full year of 2023
Tool: https://pku.deepdok.cn/interview/
Research Background and Objectives
Digital health humanities applies digital humanities technologies and data processing tools to the healthcare field to enhance precision medicine, improve diagnostic and treatment efficiency, improve healthcare quality, reduce service costs, optimize health management, and support disease control. Digital health humanities has achieved certain breakthroughs in areas such as precision medicine, bibliotherapy, and public health. However, the disconnect between technology holders and technology users that is prevalent in the digital humanities field also exists in digital health humanities, specifically manifested in the lack of full collaboration between digital humanities researchers and medical practitioners, thus failing to fully realize the application potential of digital health humanities for complex issues in the healthcare field. This project was jointly initiated by humanities scholars, clinical doctors, and interdisciplinary researchers, aiming to fully explore the theoretical significance and application value of digital health humanities.
In the era of chronic diseases, the importance of oncology is increasingly prominent. According to the National Cancer Center, China has over 4 million new cancer cases annually, with nearly 2.5 million deaths. The large number of cancer patients both poses challenges to China’s current healthcare services and objectively provides a foundation for the application of digital health humanities. Oncology is characterized by high case volume, long disease courses, high recurrence rates, and high rates of poor prognosis, making doctor-patient relationships in oncology relatively complex with high rates of medical disputes. According to preliminary targeted surveys by the project team, the main cause of doctor-patient conflicts is poor communication, with patients’ needs not being fully recognized and addressed by medical practitioners. In light of this, this project aims to establish a cancer patient narrative database, using digital health humanities tools and methods to mine and analyze cancer patients’ needs, emotions, and expectations, thereby serving clinical diagnosis, treatment, and care, optimizing doctor-patient communication, and improving patient satisfaction.
Narratives represent individual identity, collective identification, traumatic memories, current situations, and future aspirations. Analyzing cancer patient narratives can help understand the motivations, themes, realities, consciousness, structures, expectations, and purposes behind their narratives, thereby providing creative solutions to long-standing challenges such as doctor-patient conflicts. This project will focus on three key dimensions in cancer patient narratives: needs, emotions, and expectations – specifically, cancer patients’ healthcare needs, emotional characteristics, and future expectations. This project aims to supplement clinical biological information with narrative data to promote the transformation of oncology from “disease-centered” to “health-centered” holistic health concepts.
Specific Research Procedures
Research Subjects
- Inclusion Criteria
Patients must meet all of the following inclusion criteria to be enrolled in this study:
(1) Cancer patients at Peking University Third Hospital;
(2) Consent to participate in the study.
- Exclusion Criteria
Patients meeting any of the following criteria will not be enrolled in this study:
(1) Patients who lack the ability to write and/or speak;
(2) Patients or family members who do not consent to participate in this study.
- Sample Size
100 cancer patients are planned to be enrolled.
Research Content and Methods
The research team will recruit volunteers through routine clinical care and online patient networks to collect cancer patients’ illness experience narratives and establish a cancer patient narrative database. Subsequently, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods from digital humanities, in-depth analysis of cancer patient narratives will be conducted, specifically including:
(1) Using corpus linguistics methods (such as word frequency statistics, keywords, collocation analysis, concordance, etc.) to quantitatively analyze patient narratives, examining patients’ needs, emotions, and expectations in their narratives, and revealing social, cultural, emotional, and psychological factors affecting patients’ healthcare experience;
(2) Based on conversation analysis methods, collecting doctor-patient dialogue data, transcribing and annotating data, and focusing on breaking bad news, treatment recommendation negotiation, risk communication, and other aspects while reproducing the real dialogue scenarios as much as possible, thereby providing empirical evidence for data analysis;
(3) Based on narrative research methods, qualitatively examining patient illness narratives, discussing the connotations and extensions of patient narratives, including the overall structure of patient narratives, narrative positioning, identity construction, and the construction strategies used by patients when narrating their illness experiences.
Statistical Analysis
Based on conversation analysis methods, collecting doctor-patient dialogue data, transcribing and annotating data, and focusing on breaking bad news, treatment recommendation negotiation, risk communication, and other aspects while reproducing the real dialogue scenarios as much as possible, thereby providing empirical evidence for data analysis;