ABSTRACT
Objective@#To investigate the prevalence of depressive symptoms among junior middle school students in Tianjin, and to explore the association between latent classes of health risk behaviors and depressive symptoms, so as to provide clues for identifying high risk groups of depressive symptoms and a scientific basis for comprehensive intervention measures.@*Methods@#By using a multistage stratified cluster sampling method, 8 175 students in 16 districts of Tianjin were investigated with demographic characteristics, depressive symptoms, and health risk behaviors. Latent class analysis was performed by Mplus 8.3. SPSS 23.0.@*Results@#The prevalence of depressive symptoms among junior high school students in Tianjin was 17.8%,the prevalence of depressive symptoms in urban(19.4%) areas was higher than that in rural areas(16.5%),and that of female students( 20.2 %) was higher than that of male students(15.5%)( χ 2=11.62,30.58, P <0.01). Health risk behaviors were classified into three groups: healthy group (84.0%), poor diet group ( 3.8 %) and multiple risk behaviors group (12.2%). After adjusting for region, grade, gender, and family type, multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that the poor diet group ( OR=2.82, 95%CI =2.17-3.66) and the multiple risk behaviors group ( OR=4.31, 95%CI =3.67-5.05) had a higher risk of depressive symptoms compared with the healthy group ( P ＜0.01).@*Conclusion@#Depressive symptoms are prevalent among junior middle school students in Tianjin. Different latent classes of health risk behaviors have different correlations with depressive symptoms. It is important to ensure early detection and personalized intervention for different types of health risk behavior among junior middle school students to maximize cost effectiveness.