Neighborhood Intimacy as Perceived by Women Living in Urban Areas and its Association with Personal and Social Network Characteristics

Background: the purpose of this study is to determine associationbetween personal, family, neighborhood, and social networkcharacteristics and perceived intimacy in the neighborhood by thewomen.methods: in this cross?sectional study, we applied a two?stagesampling method to choose a representative sample of 150 marriedwomen and housewives, aged 15 to 49 years, who had educationbetween six and twelve years and lived in the urban areas ofthe khorasan?e?razavi province of iran. association betweenpersonal, family, neighborhood, and social network variables,with the perceived neighborhood intimacy, was assessed throughunivariate and multiple linear regression.results: based on the multiple model, there were significantassociations between neighborhood intimacy as perceived by thewomen and their education level (standardized beta=?0.190,p=0.019), length of residence (standardized beta=0.175, p=0.029),self?rated health status (standardized beta=0.177, p=0.029), andtheir individual social network size (standardized beta=0.211,p=0.030).conclusion: the potential predictors including length ofresidence, self?rated health, and size of the respondents’ personalsocial networks had a direct association with the women’sperceived neighborhood intimacy, while the education level ofthe respondents had an inverse association with the neighborhoodintimacy, as another potential predictor. neighborhood intimacycould express the social health condition of the communitymembers.