BACKGROUND: World over general practitioners are only able to identify depression in a small fraction of depressed patients presenting to them. The effect of somatisation on the identification rate is investigated OBJECTIVES: The study is aimed at determining if the identification rate of depression by general practitioners is the same among outpatients with somatic symptoms and those without somatic symptoms METHOD: This descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in Family Medicine department, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano Nigeria. Four hundred and Ten outpatients were recruited but 402 participated in the study (Response rate of 98%). The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were used to screen selected participants. Forms were included in their files for the FPs to itemize medical and psychiatric symptoms elicited as well as medical and psychiatric diagnoses made. Schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) version 2.1, was used to confirm the diagnosis of depression. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) was used after confirmation with SCAN for severity using items 11-14 of Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. Those with somatic score of 1-3 were rated as having low and those with 4-10 were rated high. RESULTS: Two hundred and thirteen participants scored above the cutoff of HADS proceeded to second stage. Two hundred were subsequently diagnosed depressed using SCAN, given the prevalence of 49.8% out of which Family Physicians (FPs) identified 16.5%. The prevalence of subtypes of depression was: mild 26.9%, moderate 20.4% and severe 2.5%. The FPs identified 31.3% of those participants diagnosed depressed without somatic symptoms compared those to 15.2% of those with who were diagnosed depressed with somatic symptoms. However, no significant association was found between FPs ability to identify depression in the presence or absence of somatic symptoms (p=0.09). A statistically significant association was found between depression and some sociodemographic factors which include age (p=0.001), gender (p=0.001), marital status (p=0.001), educational status (p=0.001) and chronic medical conditions (p=0.001). However, there was no significant association between depression and employment status, family history of mental illness and substance use in this study. CONCLUSION: This study found no association between FPs ability to identify depression and presence or absence of somatic symptoms. However, this study found that the higher the level of somatic symptoms the more unlikely it’s for FPs to identify depression. In other words somatic symptoms did indeed confuse FPs from identifying depression among general outpatients. In order to reduce the burden of depression and its impact on quality of life in General outpatient clinics, there is need for FPs to deliberately look out for depression especially when somatic symptoms are present. Continuing medical education of FPs should also include skills in identification of depression