Background: With the rapid change of social-economics in contemporary China, mental health of youth students has become a major public concern.Although living in a similar environment in university campuses, young students come from various social and familial backgrounds and may experience different life events which may affect their psychological well-being during the study period.Obiective: The purpose of this study is to investigate suicide ideation among university students and associated familial and social factors.Participants and Methods: We selected 1196 students from a university in Wuhan China with a stratified random sampling method.We used a self-designed questionnaire to assess the students suicidal ideation and to collect the data about their personal background and school life.We computed the contingency frequency of study variables and examined risk factors for suicidal ideation using conditional logistic regression.Results: Among 1182 students who completed the questionnaire, 286 (24.2%) reported to have ever considered suicide, including 121 (10.2%) students considered suicide seriously within last one year period.Compared with peer students who reported no suicide ideation, students with suicide ideation were more often reporting exposures to personal physical or mental problems.They were also more often reporting to have fewer friends, to attend less social activities at spare time, and to have recently experienced negative stressful life events.When modelling the data with logistic regression analysis, we noted that the risk for suicide ideation is significantly associated with factors as a broke-up of a love relationship, conflicts with classmates, physical health problems and in particular, a self-reported poor psychological well-being.Attendance of one or more social activities at spare time and reward of a prize or honor served as the protective factors from suicide ideation.Conclusions: Suicide ideation is common among university students in China, and is significantly associated with own social network, recent stressful life events and health status.These results underscore the importance and necessity of promoting mental health care and psychological consultation in Chinese universities.