Abstract:Objective To study the relationship between adolescent depression and emotional intelligence, and to provide the basis for improving the level of mental health in the adolescent population. Methods Using the cluster and random sampling method, and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES -D) and the Emotional Intelligence Scale were adopted to survey 1,732 junior school students. Results The total depression score and the total emotional intelligence score were significantly different in the levels of different grade, whether they were the only child or not and whether they were the student leader or not, family status and parental education (P < 0.05). The total score and each dimension score of depression were negatively correlated with the total score and each dimension score of emotional intelligence (P < 0.05). Multiple liner regression results showed that after controlling 6 variables including genders, the only child situation, student cadre situation, grades, family status and parental education level, emotional understanding, emotional management, emotional perception and emotional application were the predictive factors of depression (P < 0.05). Conclusions Depression is associated with emotional intelligence. Improving the level of emotional intelligence can reduce the severity of depression for different adolescents.