Objective To investigate the association between types of rapid eye movements during sleep and ICD-10 as a mothod for diagnosing depression. Methods Depression was diagnosed according to ICD-10 and changes of 9 variables of REM sleep in 120 psychiatric outpatients and inpatients by calculating the Kappa values. Results In 120 psychiatric patients, 52 depressive patients were diagnosed by using ICD-10, and 58 patients were diagnosed as depression according to decreased REM sleep latency and increased REM activity, REM intensity, REM density, and increasing amount of REM sleep. Kappa value was 0.73, Plt;0.05, which implied that these two diagnosing ways were significantly consistent. Conclusions Measuremen of REM sleep variable should be investigated further as a supplementary method for diagnosing depression.