Depression of older age - Origins of the study

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 I 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).