Background: Many studies have revealed that depression is one of the common psychiatric disorders, which afflicted 8-20% of population. In order to evaluate prevalence of depression in geriatrics (age >50 years old) this survey was performed in Kerman.
Materials and Methods: This Cross sectional study assesed 1212 persons over 50 years old in Spring and Summer 2002 in Kerman, who were selected by two stage sampling technique. Depression was assessed by Beck Questionaire.
Results: From total number of subjects, 225 personas (18.6%) had borderline depression and 728 persons (60%) had some degrees of depression. There was a significant statistic relation between two sexes and depression. There was also significant differences between marital status, education, age, job, socioeconomic state, addiction and depression. But when anxiety was considered as a factor, there was no significant difference between sex, job, marital status and depression.
Conclusion: These findings suggest a high rate of depression among geriatrics in Kerman. Female sex, low socioeconomic state, living alone and drug abuse were risk factors for depression in geriatrics.
 
 Key words: Geriatric, Depression, Kerman

Keywords: Geriatric, Depression, Kerman

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