Women are twice as likely as men to be depressed, Dr Narong said.
According to a ministry study, people living in Bangkok have a 5% chance of being depressed, compared with 2.3 per cent to 2.7 per cent for those outside the capital.
Dr Narong said depression treatment was available at all community hospitals.
The ministry has also trained health volunteers to diagnose people's mental conditions so that they can send those who need help to hospitals.
Vachira Pengchant, director-general of the Department of Mental Health, said the main difficulty with people suffering from depression was that only 29 per cent of them received treatment.
"Some people might not know that they're suffering from depression while others might be against seeing psychiatrists," Dr Vachira said.
He said many depressed patients only needed to take one pill daily and their condition would start to improve within two to four weeks.
In cases where depression is not severe, after taking medication for six months, most patients would be fully treated and would have less chance of becoming depressed again. The chances of the condition reoccurring are 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
Read the original story on the Bangkok Post here.