Depression is the most common mental disorder among older adults and one of the most disabling conditions worldwide.  General objective: To review the scientific evidence on the psychometric properties of the geriatric depression scale. Methodology: A documentary study of systematic literature review was carried out. Regarding the search strategies, we worked with the library of the Catholic University of Cuenca, the Scopus, Pubmed and Web of Science databases were used, from 2017 to 2021in English and Spanish language.  This allowed obtaining a total of 14 articles that were thoroughly analyzed. Main results: The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) has adequate, reliable, and valid psychometric properties to assess knowledge about geriatric depression, thus contributing for students, health profession, because it is a brief and easy to apply screening instrument, widely used in clinical and research to detect depressive symptoms in older adults that can provide a reliability of an adequate diagnosis. Conclusion: It is concluded that the GDS is a reliable instrument to apply in the older adult population.