OBJECTIVES: Examining Recent Epidemiological findings depression's prevalence, diagnostic processes, co-occurring conditions, and treatments, especially in primary care, and to identify roadblocks obstacles the identification, diagnosis, and optimum administration of depression in routine medical care, and to provide a synopsis of current initiatives aimed at lowering these barriers. DESIGN: Depressive disorders in primary care settings; their epidemiology; their co-occurrence; their diagnosis; their costs and outcomes; and their treatment; these are all topics that were researched and documented in scholarly articles published over the past decade. Select articles were read and summarised based on their relevance to the goal. CONCLUSIONS: Suffering, functional impairment, higher risk of suicide, increased costs in health care, and lost productivity are just few of the outcomes of depression's regular occurrence. Both isolated cases of depression and depression that occurs in conjunction with other medical issues can be effectively treated. Many patients with depression who present to primary care clinics are good candidates for in-house treatment. In basic care settings, only about half of patients with depression receive an accurate diagnosis and treatment. When effective treatments are used, patients fare well in the short term. Stigma, patient somatization and denial, physician knowledge and skill gaps, lack of time, scarcity of available providers and treatments, inadequate third-party coverage, and limitations on specialist, drug, and psychotherapeutic care all stand in the way of an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment of depression. We need better destigmatization and access to mental health care, as well as public and professional education campaigns, to break down these barriers.