Depression of older age

BACKGROUND: The EURODEP collaboration was formed to take advantage of existing studies of random community samples of older people in Europe, using GMS-AGECAT for case identification and diagnosis. Later, other centres joined, and the EURO-D scale was developed to harmonise the different methods used with the GMS. Previous studies had revealed different levels of depression in Europe but had been confounded by the use of unreconcilable methods. These studies attempt to overcome this problem. AIMS: To introduce the first set of publications from the EURODEP collaboration. METHOD, RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Presented in five accompanying papers (pp. 307-345, this issue).