People with depression have increased the risk of mortality rate among cancer patients. Research literature was reviewed with regard to depression, its prevalence among cancer patients and associated factors. A literature search was conducted with the following search terms, key-words and phrases‘depression’ and ‘cancer patients’. The search was performed in the following databases - PubMed, ProQuest and Google Scholar. Considerable debate exists regarding the causes for the high prevalence of depression in patients with cancer, however gaps remain in relevant aspects, encouraging further studies in specific subgroups of cancer patients to evaluate the impact of each variable on the risk for developing depression. From this review we infer, that there are various factors which influence the increased prevalence of depression, among patients with cancer. Rather than a single causative factor, there are multiple factors associated with depression, such as socio-demographic variables and clinical variables. Research literature supports the necessity for early identification of depression in people with cancer and initiation of suitable interventions. It is of paramount importance that guidelines specific to the Indian context are developed for the screening and monitoring of cancer patients with reference to depression.
