Abstract: Objective To investigate the prevalence of depressive symptoms and to evaluate the relationship between depressive symptoms and health risk behaviors among high school students in Nanjing city of Jiangsu province.Methods The subjects were 2 160 high school students recruited from 5 schools with random sampling method from September to October 2010.The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale was used in the survey.Results The ratios of the students with one,two,and three or more health risk behaviors were 21.6%,6.0%,and 4.4%,respectively.The overall detection rate of depressive symptoms was 46.0%,with the detection rate of 29.4% for mild depressive symptoms,13.4% for moderate depressive symptoms,and 3.3% for severe depressive symptoms.The detection rate of depressive symptoms in senior students was higher than in junior students.The detection rate of depression symptoms in the students with health risk behaviors was higher than in the students without health risk behaviors.Multivariate logistic analysis indicated that with the increasing of the health risk behaviors,the detection rate of depressive symptoms increased,with an adjusted population attributable risk(PAR%) of 14.8%.Conclusion Health risk behaviors are risk factors for depressive symptoms and more attentions should be paid to the risk factors among high school students.