Background and Objectives: The mental health of nurses, who are a part of the health care system, is extremely important in order to be able provide effective health care services to patients. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to determine the prevalence of depression in nurses working in Iranian hospitals in order to point out to the importance of this issue to health policymakers. 
Methods: This study is a systematic review and meta-analysis which was conducted by adherence to the PRISMA checklist and STROBE Statement. All related published articles during April 2000 to March 2016 were searched on SID & Magiran, Medline (PubMed), ScienceDirect and Google Scholar databases. The different combinations of keywords like nurse, depression, prevalence, hospital and Iran were used. The heterogeneity of the studies was assessed using I2 index and the data were analyzed in Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software.
Results: A total of 12 studies were included in this review. The overall prevalence of depression in Iranian hospital nurses was 29.9% (19.4-43.2%: 95% confidence interval). The highest prevalence of depression was reported among nurses in Tehran hospitals in 2000 which was 73.1% (64.8%-80%: 95% confidence interval) and the least prevalence of depression was recorded among nurses in Ilam hospitals in 2014 which was 5.8% (2.4-13.2%: 95% confidence interval).
Conclusion: Considering the high prevalence of depression (29.9 %) in nurses working in hospitals of Iran, it is necessary that health policy makers and hospital managers pay more attention to this issue.