Background : Over the last 70 years, life expectancy has increased in India. According to 2016 report by the ministry for statistics and programme implementation, India has 103.9 million elderly people above age 60,about 8.5 percent population. Indian elderly population is currently the second largest in the world. 20% of illness in the elderly is due to mental or a neurological illness and the most common being dementia and depression. Objectives of the study was to – assess the prevalence of depression among geriatric population attending OPD of selected tertiary hospitals and associate with selected demographic variables. Methodology: A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in the year 2016-2017 on geriatric population attending Out Patient Departments of selected tertiary hospitals using a self administered semi structured questionnaire. The questionnaire included section I, socio demographic data and section II Geriatric Depression Scale Short Form (GDS-SF).120 samples selected by stratified simple random sampling. Ethical clearance obtained from Institutional Research Ethical committee. Permission obtained from tertiary hospital and informed consent was taken. Data collected was analyzed using SPSS 19 and interpreted the depression levels and their associations with the socio demographic variables. Results: Prevalence of depression was 24.2%. Significant association exists between depression and marital status ( p value - 0.003) and living arrangement( p value - 0.006 ). Conclusion: With the gradual greying of population expected in India over the coming time, maintaining a good quality of life for the senior citizens is the need of the hour.
