Abstract: Objective To evaluate effect of family socioeconomic status and life events on mental health of medical students.Methods 1 753 medical students were chosen by cluster-random sampling and three questionnaires including one for general states,Symptom Checklist-90(SCL-90)and Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check List(ASL EC),were adopted.Results Four variables including family monthly income,father's occupation,mother's education,and parental divorce were retained in the multivariate stepwise regraessions with 9 scales of SCL-90 as dependences.Father's occupation were included in equations when score of ASL EC was taken as another independece with 5-6 times of increascing of R-square.8 items of ASL EC were included in the stepwise regression with the total sccore of SCL-90 as the dependense(R²=0.511,P=0.000).Conclusion Negative life events showa stronger effect on mental health than family socioenconomic status.