Background Cognitive decline of ageing population has become one of the major public health challenges worldwide, and familial factors (such as household income, marital status, etc.) have been identified as risk factors. Currently, we mainly focused on two familial factors: living with spouse/child and intergenerational rearing (taking care of grandchildren), exploring their relations with cognitive ageing. We also tested the possible mediating role of depression between the two family factors and cognitive decline. Methods Data was derived from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) database, and a total of 8474 participants (3602 females, mean age = 69.64) were included in the current research. Latent growth model (LGM) has been constructed for cognitive functions, with initial level and declining rate being estimated respectively. We further examined: (1) whether living with spouse/child and intergenerational rearing could influence the declining trajectory (initial level and declining rate) of elders’ cognitive functioning; (2) and if so, whether depression could mediate the effects of living with spouse/child and intergenerational rearing on cognitive functioning. Results First, while living with spouse/child was related to higher initial level of cognitive functions and slower declining rate, intergenerational rearing was associated with neither of them. Second, growth trajectory of depression partly mediated the effects of living with spouse/child on cognitive functioning (Indirect effect = 0.14; p < 0.01). Conclusions Familial factors (living with spouse/child and intergenerational rearing) may be influential on declining trajectories of elders’ cognitive functions, and depression may mediate such effects. More research efforts are needed to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relations between familial factors and cognitive ageing.

BACKGROUND Deliberate self-harm is common during adolescence and can have detrimental consequences for the well-being of adolescents. Although it is sometimes difficult to engage adolescents in traditional psychotherapies for deliberate self-harm, SMS text messaging has been shown to be promising for cost-effective and low-intensity interventions. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the views of Chinese adolescents with deliberate self-harm about SMS text messaging interventions in order to develop an acceptable and culturally competent intervention for adolescents with deliberate self-harm. METHODS Semistructured interviews were conducted with 23 adolescents who had experience with deliberate self-harm. The transcripts of the interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS Four themes were identified: beneficial perception of receiving messages, short frequency and duration of messages, caring content in messages, and specific times for sending messages. Most of the participants perceived SMS text messaging interventions to be beneficial. The key factors that emerged for the content of the intervention included encouragement and company, feeling like a virtual friend, providing coping strategies, and individualized messages. In addition, the preferred frequency and duration of the SMS text messaging intervention were identified. CONCLUSIONS Our study will help in the development of a culturally appropriate SMS text messaging intervention for adolescents with deliberate self-harm. It has the potential to decrease deliberate self-harm instances by providing acceptable support for adolescents with deliberate self-harm who may be reluctant to seek face-to-face psychotherapies.