Objective  To investigate the association of social network with life satisfaction among urban community elderly.

  Methods  Totally 1 200 permanent residents aged 60 years and above were recruited at 3 urban communities in Beijing, Hefei and Lanzhou city for a survey from November 2017 to May 2018. The elderly's information on demographics, health status, and life satisfaction were collected with a self-designed questionnaire and social work of the elderly was evaluated using Lubben Social Network Scale-6 (LSNS-6). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed with SPSS 20.0 software.

  Results  Valid information were collected from 95.7% (1 148) of the elderly. The respondents with healthy social network reported a significantly higher ratio of life satisfaction compared to the respondents with social isolation (62.65% 379/625 vs. 46.60% 233/500, P < 0.001); the respondents with healthy family social network reported a significantly higher ratio of life satisfaction compared to the respondents with family social isolation (60.84% 491/807 vs. 41.07% 131/319, P < 0.001); the respondents with healthy friend social network reported a significantly higher ratio of life satisfaction compared to the respondents with friend social isolation (60.27% 361/599 vs. 49.42% 257/520, P < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression results demonstrated that the respondents with family social isolation were more likely to report lower life satisfaction, with an odds ratio of 2.045 (95% confidence interval: 1.362 – 3.071). No significant association of social isolation and friend social isolation with life satisfaction were observed (P > 0.05).

  Conclusion  In general, family social network contributes much more than friend social network to life satisfaction among urban community elderly.