Objective To evaluate the relationship between the incidence rate of hepatic encephalopathy in patients with cirrhosis and the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD).Methods The total of 120 patients with decompensated cirrhosis were enrolled and followed-up.MELD score was obtained to observe the incidence of hepatic encephalopathy.Results The incidence of hepatic encephalopathy was 44.17％(53/120).MELD score in hepatic encephalopathy patients was significantly higher than that in none hepatic encephalopathy patients[(21.69 ± 9.22) scores vs.(9.32 ± 4.63) scores],and there was significant difference (P ＜ 0.05).With the increase of MELD score,the incidence of hepatic encephalopathy increased (P ＜ 0.01).The best critical value of MELD score was 14.13 scores (the sensitivity of 86.05％ and the specificity of 88.37％),when MELD ≥14.13 scores,the incidence of hepatic encephalopathy within 3 months was significantly higher [63.16％(48/76) vs.11.36％(5/44)] (x2 =30.32,P＜ 0.01).Conclusion MELD can help predicting the incidence of hepatic encephalopathy in decompensated cirrhosis patients.