It's known worldwide that depression is becoming a major health problem and its prevalence is increasing. Unfortunately very few studies were done in our country to verify this. The main objective of this study is to find out the prevalence of depression among patients attending a general psychiatric clinic, and demonstrate their Sociodemographic and clinical features.

This is a descriptive retrospective study carried in Khartoum, Sudan.

Files of patients attending a private psychiatric clinical in Khartoum in the period June 2005- June 2010 was reviewed. Only those with diagnosis of depression were chosen, socio demographic date and clinical features were documented, results were shown below.

Total numbers of patients with depression were 137 (11.4%) those with schizophrenia are (13%), meaning that patients with schizophrenia are brought with relatives more than patients with depression. Females are more than males (56.2%), the majority are between ages 41---60 (40.9%), married (65%), (14.9%) has got family history of psychiatric disorders, (52%) has previous history of psychiatric treatment. Regarding clinical features, depressed mood is the commonest symptom (98.5%), loss of interest (91.9%), reduced energy (57%), guilt feelings (17.9%) and (35.8%) of our samples expressed suicidal ideations. The commonest type of somatic symptoms is generalized aches and pain (30.7%). (8%) presented with nihilistic delusions. The most common prescribed antidepressants are SSRI.