Introduction: When a person is diagnosed with COPD, he or she may become very fearful and anxious this may trigger depression.  The present study is aimed to assess the prevalence of depression in COPD Patients as compare to patients with other medical illness.

Material and method: A total of 100 patients were taken. Out of 100 patients 60 patients were of COPD in study group and 40 matched control having medical illness other than COPD. Psychiatric evaluation was done for each case on a semi structured Performa and on the three rating instruments– i)Hamilton Anxiety Scale ii) Hamilton Rating Depression Scale and iii) DSM IV text criteria.

Result: In study group 36 patients (60%) have depression as compare to only 11(27.5%) in control group. The prevalence of depression between the COPD and control were statistically significant (p<0.05, Z=3.45). In the present study predominant type of depression is reactive depression (36%) and mixed anxiety and depression(23.3%).

Conclusion: From this study it can be logically concluded that depression occur at higher rate in COPD than other chronic illness and it is often associated with anxiety.