Objective: The present study assessed the prevalence of depressive disorders and associated factors in a sample of elderly persons in the south of Santa Catarina. Methods: A crosssectional study based on population data was performed, evaluating 1021 elderly individuals aged between 60 and 79 years. Home interviews were carried out using the Portuguese version of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), in order to collect demographic data, information on hypertension and reports of acute myocardial infarction. The disorders studied were current depressive episode, dysthymia and a comorbidity of a depressive episode and dysthymia, representing double depression. The comparison of mean age and prevalence was made with the t-test and other associations were analyzed using the Chi-squared test. Results: The prevalence of depression was 26.2%, while 5.5% of the sample suffered from dysthymia and 2.7% experienced double depression. Risk factors for depression were: nine or more years of schooling [PR = 1. 44 Conclusions: The present study shows that depressive disorders are a common phenomenon among the elderly. The results not only corroborated with other studies, but found slightly higher levels of depressive disorders among the elderly population.