Objective   To examine the status quo and influencing factors of quality of life (QoL) among community residents with chronic non-communicable diseases in Zhuhai city, Guangdong province for providing references to improve QoL of the patients.

  Methods   During May – August 2015, we first conducted a household questionnaire survey among 3 357 permanent residents aged 15 years and above in Zhuhai city using stratified multistate cluster random sampling; then, we assessed the QoL of 523 chronic non-communicable disease patients medically diagnosed among the 3 320 residents completing the survey with Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) and analyzed impact factors of QoL among the patients.

  Results  For all the patients, the overall score of SF-36 was 67.02 ± 14.67 and the scores of physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) were 69.38 ± 17.36 and 69.75 ± 17.81; the SF-36 domain scores of the patients were 82.28 ± 19.90 for physiological functioning (PF), 69.41 ± 38.39 for role-physical (RP), 71.05 ± 18.61 for bodily pain (BP), 55.33 ± 17.76 for general health (GH), 65.53 ± 18.03 for vitality (VT), 84.99 ± 23.37 for social functioning (SF), 67.94 ± 39.07 for role-emotional (RE), 70.00 ± 16.73 for mental health (MH), and 46.65 ± 26.64 for health transition (HT), respectively. Stepwise multivariate linear regression analysis indicated that the patients with higher family monthly income per capita (β = 10.361) were more likely to have a better PCS; while, those at older age (β = 0.789), with higher family monthly income per capita (β = 0.789), and with frequent weekly physical exercise (β = 14.962) were more likely to have a better MCS.

  Conclusion   The quality of life of patients with non-communicable diseases in Zhuhai city was relatively poor and influenced by age, family monthly income per capita and frequency of weekly physical exercise.