Introduction:

people with diabetes can develop any psychiatric syndrome, being anxiety and depression the most common, due to the social impact of this disease, which is closely related to the lifestyle of the individual, changes in the social environment, attachment or not to treatment and acceptance of disease.

Objectives:

to determine the frequency of depression in type 2 diabetic patients attending the outpatient department of Internal Medicine of the Central Hospital of San Cristobal (Tachira, Venezuela) and provide evidence of association with demographic and clinical characteristics.

Materials and Methods:

an observational, prospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study in which 100 patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus were included during the period between March and October 2013, to whom the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was applied. Data were processed using the statistical package Epi Info Version 7. Calculations were performed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results:

the frequency of depression in type 2 diabetic patients was in percentage terms 82% higher in female (59.76%), and statistically significant association between depression and age group of 39-48 years (p = 0.014 043), single marital status (p = 0.048476), no current occupation (p = 0.033012), with chronic complications of diabetes (p = 0.0005378911), oral hypoglycemic treatment (p = 0.0098842716) and with the use of insulin (p = 0.0430326871) was found.

Discussion:

there is a high prevalence of depression in patients with type 2 diabetes, mostly associated with sex, age group, marital status, chronic complications and type of treatment. (Acta Med Colomb 2016; 41: 102-110).