Background & Objectives: Mental health is considered as one of the most important indexes of community health Among the most common psychiatric disorders in communities.  Depression is one of the most common psychiatric illness that effect all community groups and categories . Depression is  a common, debilitating and potentially life threatening disorder could  prevent promotion of  individual achievements and the ability to perform actions and tasks that he is responsible for and as a result  could impair people’s health and progress in  the society.  University Students due to the changes of living place, separation from family, academic stress and other reasons are at higher risk for this disorder. This matter is important in students of medical sciences, especially nursing students that  are involved in maintaining their individual physical and mental health . therefore, these students are very important because of their professional character and nature of course. This Study has been done to measure the status of depression among nursing students to achieve the research objectives that certainly identify the prevalence and factors leading to depression.

Materials & Methods: This study is a cross sectional study. study samples was consisted of 70  nursing students in  Jondishapour Medical Sciences that  randomly  were chosen. Questionnaire “Beck Depression “ was applied as study instrument  . Relevant factors such as: sex, birth, being native, field of interest, family history of depression, family problems and socio - economic status, parental death, semester, and educational status were assessed. Finally,Data were analyzed with statistics - descriptive analysis.

Results: The results of this study showed that overally 7 / 35 percent of nursing students were affected by Depression; 8 / 31 percent of boys and 6 / 27 percent of girls are included. There was a significant relationship Between Depression and  the semester  (p=0.03). Parental death, interest to field ,and being native with depression showed a significant relationship (p>0.05).

Conclusion: The results of this study indicated  the prevalence of depression among students. some measures must be taken to reduce environmental and  individual stresses in university students. Detection and follow up high risk cases, especially in the younger generation is considered  very  important to prevent the debilitating effects of this disorder.