This study examines the association between attitudes toward animals, anthropomorphic tendencies, and beliefs about the social role of companion animals (cats and dogs) in the household. We hypothesised that beliefs about the social role of companion animals are shaped both by general attitudes toward animals, including opinions about the emotional and cognitive abilities of the animals, and by a higher tendency to anthropomorphise expressed by pet owners. We investigated behavioural expressions, such as communication and reconciliation with the animal, and perceived social support as relational outcomes between owners and their pets. Data were collected via questionnaires from a sample of 445 cat and dog guardians from Romania, where cultural norms around companion animals are under-researched. The findings indicate that anthropomorphic thinking is a stronger predictor of the perceived social role of the pet in the familial structure than general attitudes toward animals. Moreover, our findings indicate that pet role perception partially mediates the relational outcomes: participants who ascribed their pets a more influential social role reported a higher level of communicative and reconciliatory behaviour, as well as greater social support. This study also explores the valence of anthropomorphic attribution, whether positive, negative, or mixed. The findings reflect that participants vary in the attribution of exclusively positive, exclusively negative, or mixed qualities to their pets. These results highlight nuanced psychological processes that are shaping the emotional and behavioural landscape of human-pet relationships, and can be further integrated in educational contexts, including preparation for adoption, fostering and pet management programs.

As family structures and workforce compositions evolve, individuals increasingly navigate multiple roles across work and family domains. Despite growing research interest, a comprehensive synthesis examining the relationship between work–family conflict and health behaviors remains absent. This systematic review and meta-analysis addresses this significant gap by quantifying associations between work–family conflict and five important health behaviors: sleep disturbances, smoking behaviors, alcohol consumption, physical activity levels, and healthy diet. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed. Electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science) were searched. Heterogeneity and publication bias were assessed using forest plots, I2, Cochran’s Q-statistics, Funnel plots, and the Egger test, respectively. A total of 33 articles were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Work–family conflict had a small-to-medium positive association with sleep disturbances (r = 0.188; 95% CI [0.128, 0.247]); a negative association with healthy diet (r = −0.129; 95% CI [−0.219, −0.037]); and a modest and positive association with smoking behaviors (r = 0.082; 95% CI [0.033, 0.206]) and alcohol consumption (r = 0.074; 95% CI [0.039, 0.109]). The findings of this study suggest that individual, family, and organizational strategies reducing work–family conflict may facilitate the development and adoption of healthier behaviors, such as improving sleep and dietary practices. This study enhances understanding of work–family conflict’s relationship with health behaviors, bridging the management and occupational health psychology literature with the general and public health literature by systematically examining, for the first time, how work–family conflicts impair personal health behaviors.

ABSTRACT This study examines the associations between intergenerational family pressure, marital dissatisfaction, marital conflict, and spousal communication constraints among married women living in joint family systems in Bhakkar, Punjab, Pakistan. Using a cross-sectional survey design, data were collected from 841 participants. Structural equation modeling indicated that intergenerational family pressure was positively associated with marital dissatisfaction and marital conflict. In addition, spousal communication constraints were significantly associated with intergenerational family pressure and statistically mediated its associations with both marital conflict and marital dissatisfaction. Grounded in Family Systems Theory and Communication Privacy Management Theory, the findings illustrate how intergenerational dynamics and boundary regulation processes are linked to marital relationships within collectivist family structures. Overall, the study enhances understanding of how cultural and familial expectations relate to communication patterns, intimacy, and marital well-being, underscoring the importance of culturally sensitive approaches to marital counseling and relationship research.

Family structure and depression in Chinese adolescents: the mediating role of resilience.

How long-term care literacy impacts older adults' preferences for future care services.

Mapping the scholarly landscape: A bibliometric mosaic of socio-cultural influences on children's self-regulation.

The sibling dynamic of creativity: Development and validation of the Creativity Nurturing Behavior of Siblings (CNBS) scale on a specific population of sibling dyads.

Peer, family, and teacher relationships and adolescent internet gaming addiction: Mediating roles of social interaction and emotional needs.

Targeting FoxO1 in cardiovascular diseases: Mechanisms and therapeutic potential.

Genome-wide identification, characterization, molecular evolution and expression profiling analysis of COMMD gene family in black rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii).

The ongoing legacy of Indigenous family separation: Long-term outcomes of child welfare involvement among American Indian and First Nations youth.

The current study was planned with the aim to measure the relationship among family functioning, emotional intelligence and suicidal tendencies in adolescents by using a cross sectional survey research design. Through multi-stage stratified sampling, a sample of 1000 adolescents’ age ranging from 13–19 years was recruited from schools and colleges of Gujrat, Pakistan. The General Functioning of Family Scale was used to collect data on general functioning (Kareem et al., 2022), the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale was employed to collect data on emotional intelligence (Zahra et al., 2024), and the Suicidal Tendencies Scale(Kausar & Fatima 2024) was used to collect data on suicide tendencies. Analysis of Pearson correlation showed significant negative relationships among suicidal tendencies, family functioning (r = −0.431, p < 0.01) and emotional intelligence (r = −0.209, p < 0.01). ANOVA and t -test results showed significant differences in emotional intelligence of adolescents (F = 39.29, p = 0.001) in relation to the maternal education. Further, the females had higher emotional intelligence as compared to the males (p = 0.002). Conversely, the gender and a family structure (nuclear & joint) did not have a significant influence on suicidal tendencies. The findings highlight the importance of the systemic interventions, implying that the enhancement of the family cohesion and incorporation of the emotional literacy programs into the educational curriculums are key measures in preventing suicide among the adolescents.

European statistics and policies commonly rely on household typologies that classify households based on the number of adults and children living together. However, these typologies overlook family relationships and classify any non-standard arrangement into a broad residual category of ‘other’. This approach fails to capture increasing family diversity across Europe and introduces a persistent North-Western bias into data and policymaking. As a result, families that do not fit conventional models may be misclassified or entirely overlooked in poverty assessments and policy targeting. This is problematic since family structures vary substantially across European countries and became more diverse over time. This article introduces the Families in Households Typology (FHT), a classification system that uses relationship identifiers in EU-SILC microdata to reconstruct family structures within households. The FHT reduces the share of individuals placed in the residual ‘other’ category from over 20% to around 5%, particularly improving identification in Southern, Central, and Eastern European countries where multigenerational living arrangements are common. The results also show that nearly half of all single parents in Europe live with another adult and are not captured as single parents under conventional typologies. This has important implications for policy design: many single-parent households may be excluded from targeted support due to misclassification. Reclassifying households using the FHT also reshapes our understanding of living standards. The poverty risk of single parents is often overestimated when the Eurostat household typology is adopted. When single parents co-residing with kin or unrelated adults are correctly identified, their average poverty risk tends to be much lower. These findings highlight the importance of moving away from basic household counts towards relational classifications that more accurately reflect the diversity of family life across Europe, rather than using typologies that reflect the dominant family reality in Northern and Western Europe.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with alteration of gut microbiome, but the influence of familial structure on it remains poorly understood. We investigate gut microbiota across 429 children from multiplex families with multiple affected children, simplex families with one affected child, and single-child ASD families, alongside typically developing controls. We found that children from multiplex families exhibit the most distinct microbiome compositions. Cohabiting siblings in ASD families display higher microbiome similarity than those in healthy families, with a clear gradient in strain-sharing rates that is highest in multiplex, intermediate in simplex, and lowest in healthy siblings. This increased sharing involves specific taxa with reported opportunistic pathogenic potential, such as Eubacterium rectale, alongside reduced sharing of the commensal bacterium Bacteroides xylanisolvens. This suggests that their gut microbiome configurations, which are potentially influenced by shared environmental and host factors, are associated with increased persistence or detectability of specific bacterial strains. Our results underscore the significant contribution of family type to microbial heterogeneity in ASD and provide a hypothesis-generating context for future studies to explore the role of the shared microbial environment in a familial context.

Leukemia is a malignant clonal disease of hematopoietic stem cells. Currently, primary treatments include chemotherapy, targeted drugs, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and immunotherapy. Although advances in treatment have improved survival for leukemia patients, treatment failure still occurs in some individuals for various reasons. This necessitates the discovery of new pathogenic mechanisms and the exploration of novel biological targets. Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor-Associated Factors (TRAFs) are a family of cytoplasmic adapter proteins, typically comprising seven members. The TRAF protein family is widely involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, survival, and apoptosis, and also regulates immune and inflammatory responses. TRAFs perform dual roles in a broad range of biological activities—as adapter proteins and as E3 ubiquitin ligases—both essential for activating receptor-mediated signaling. In recent years, growing evidence has highlighted the significant role of TRAFs in leukemia, linking them to leukemic stem cell activity, drug resistance, apoptosis, and autophagy. This review introduces the functions and characteristics of TRAFs and summarizes research progress on their involvement in leukemia, underscoring their potential as novel therapeutic targets for the disease.

This review examined adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) associated with the risk of major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD). A search was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, SciELO, and LILACS. Study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment were performed independently by two reviewers. Twenty-four studies were included, encompassing 1,119,606 participants. Family structure adversities and sexual and physical abuse were the most frequently examined exposures, although their associations with MDD varied across studies. Emotional abuse, domestic violence, and bullying were less commonly assessed but showed more consistent associations with MDD. Evidence regarding TRD was limited, with childhood neglect as a risk factor for poorer treatment response. Greater cumulative exposure to ACEs was associated with higher risk of MDD and TRD. Overall, the findings support childhood adversity as a clinically relevant determinant of depressive risk and clinical course, although heterogeneity across study designs and high risk of bias limit causal inference.

ABSTRACT Human trafficking of women and children (HTWC) has always been a global concern and a persistent social issue in China. But feminist critiques of HTWC’s media representations are insufficient in understanding the underlying gendered power dynamics and ideologies, especially in non-Western, local socio-political contexts. Drawing on the anthropological notion of “transforming patriarchal configurations,” which focuses on the interplay between gender and generational inequalities, this study takes China’s state media as a critical and illustrative case. It systematically explores how HTWC’s representations engage with patriarchal values embedded in Chinese society. This study analyzes 117 news articles from People’s Daily (2011–2024) with critical discourse analysis and content analysis. The findings reveal a nuanced picture. The ambivalent subordinations between society, families, and individuals reframe personal suffering as collective tragedies for families and society. Structural causes like gender inequality are systematically downplayed in favor of discourses prioritizing patriarchal familial values and social order, echoing the state’s intent to preserve existing patriarchal family structures and maintain social stability, thereby legitimizing the very gendered hierarchies that potentially exacerbate HTWC. This study contributes to understanding how state media’s discourses shape patriarchal configurations and offers insights into media representation research of HTWC and gender violence more broadly.

Reporting delays in child abuse: Insights from a chart review.

Background: Stunting is a global health problem that is significantly influenced by sociocultural factors at the household level. In extended family structures such as in Indonesia, grandmothers have a great influence that often determines the success or obstacles in the practice of feeding toddlers. Purpose: This article aims to analyze and synthesize the literature on the influence of parenting culture by grandmothers on feeding practices of toddlers who are at risk of causing stunting. Methods: The literature review was conducted by following the PRISMA flow guide. Article searches using PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar databases in the 2020–2025 time frame. A total of 9 original research articles that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed narratively. Results: The thematic analysis identified three main points: 1) Grandmothers act as key decision makers in the family hierarchy; 2) The strong traditional nutrition myth encourages the practice of pre-lactal feeding and early MP-breastfeeding before the age of six months; 3) There is a fatalistic perception that considers stunting as a genetic/hereditary factor as a self-defense mechanism against the stigma of malnutrition. Conclusions: Grandparents' parenting culture is a crucial sociocultural determinant in the incidence of stunting. Stunting prevention interventions need to shift from an education model centered only on mothers to a family approach that actively involves grandmothers as the main target of culturally sensitive nutrition education.

Autonomous motivation, grounded in self-determination theory, is important for sustaining diabetes self-care behaviors. Although mobile health interventions, gamification, and peer support are increasingly used to enhance motivation in diabetes care, evidence on how motivation evolves over time remains limited. Specifically, it is unclear whether motivational change follows a linear pattern or a nonlinear trajectory, such as an initial increase followed by a subsequent decline. Clarifying these temporal patterns is critical for informing the design of adaptive diabetes self-care interventions. The objective of this study was to characterize the 1-year developmental trajectory of autonomous motivation following the real-world introduction of a commercially available team-based gamification app. This prospective, single-arm longitudinal study involved adults with diabetes (predominantly type 2) recruited from outpatient clinics in Japan. Participants were instructed to use a team-based gamification app designed to promote desirable habits through peer support and social comparison for at least 7 days. The primary outcome, autonomous motivation, was assessed using the Treatment Self-Regulation Questionnaire-Autonomous Motivation subscale (TSRQ-AM; score range 7-49) at baseline, 6 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year. Secondary measures included hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), body weight, triglycerides, and psychological scales (eg, Self-Efficacy Scale for Diabetes Self-Care, Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities, Problem Areas in Diabetes scale, and World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index). To analyze the trajectory, we used linear mixed-effects models with random intercepts for participants. The final model included fixed effects for time (as both linear and quadratic terms), age, sex, employment status, family structure, baseline BMI, and baseline HbA1c. Of 32 consenting participants, 29 (90.6%) were included in the primary analysis; clinical data at 1 year were available for 26 (81.3%) participants. In exploratory analyses, mean TSRQ-AM scores increased from baseline (37.4, SD 7.9) to 6 months (39.5, SD 7.4; Cohen d=0.47). Over the 1-year period, body weight decreased significantly (b=-0.39; P=.01), whereas HbA1c (P=.40) and triglycerides (P=.14) showed no significant changes. The TSRQ-AM score showed a significant nonlinear change over time. A model including a quadratic time term fit significantly better than a linear-only model (χ21=4.1; P=.04), with a significant quadratic effect (b=-7.26; P=.045), indicating an inverted U-shaped trajectory peaking at 6 months. Higher baseline BMI was associated with lower TSRQ-AM scores (b=-1.00; P=.001). This formative study provides preliminary evidence of a nonlinear, 1-year trajectory of autonomous motivation following the introduction of a team-based app. The observed curvilinear pattern suggests that autonomous motivation during the intervention may peak at around 6 months, underscoring the importance of adaptive intervention designs to maintain engagement over time. The accompanying reduction in body weight suggests potential physiological relevance that warrants further investigation in controlled studies. UMIN Clinical Trials Registry UMIN000044874; https://tinyurl.com/59bzb68k.