[The symptomatology of self-referred depression by elderly people who live in a shantytown].

The scope of this quantitative exploratory study was to evaluate the symptomatology of self-referred depression by the elderly, taking socio-demographic variables into consideration. The data collected by means of semi-structured interviews and the Abbreviated Geriatric Depression Scale involving 240 elderly residents in João Pessoa in the state of Paraíba between October and December 2010 were analyzed by Excel and SPSS software. It was found that 75.