Empathy and Cultural Adaptation in Auto-Translated Subtitles for Postpartum Depression:Improving Women’s Mental Health Media from English to Chinese

Abstract

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a prevalent yet often overlooked mental health problem that profoundly affects women, babies, and families. Although one in seven women experiences PPD after childbirth, many are reluctant to disclose their symptoms due to stigma, resulting in nearly 50% of cases going undiagnosed and untreated. In light of this, YouTube has become an important medium for disseminating health information and reducing the stigma associated with mental health. Its automatic translation feature provides a cost-effective way to distribute PPD educational videos worldwide, but auto-translated subtitles still face challenges in delivering empathy, cultural context, and proper formatting, particularly between English and Chinese. This study examines the challenges and improvement strategies in translating PPD-related subtitles from English to Chinese through qualitative analysis of ten selected YouTube videos. Based on mental health language guidelines, it highlights four dimensions of empathy in automatic translation: destigmatising language, respectful language, positive language, and the handling of sensitive topics such as suicide and death discourse. From the perspective of cultural adaptation, the study reveals challenges in terminology, cultural and social attitude expression, and the handling of metaphors and polysemy. It also identifies issues in subtitle formatting and proposes strategies to improve readability, consistency, and viewers’ understanding. This research helps build a framework for translating PPD mental health subtitles and supports the wider dissemination of mental health information.