ABSTRACT Objective to assess health-related quality of life in people with chronic wounds and its association with sociodemographic and health characteristics. Method a cross-sectional and analytical study conducted with 85 individuals with chronic wounds in a university hospital from Paraíba, Brazil. The data were collected from June to September 2019 through interviews guided by the Medical Outcome Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey generic Quality of Life assessment instruments and the Cardiff Wound Impact Schedule specific tool for people with chronic wounds. The Student's t, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney's U, Kruskal-Wallis and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests were applied to analyze the data, with 5% significance. Results there was predominance of aged and married women with venous wounds not healing for over 24 weeks. The mean score of the generic instrument, which was 35.08, indicated a negative association between the physical capacity domain and female gender; as well as between vitality and age over 60 years old; between emotional aspects and marital status; of functional capacity, limitation of physical activity and emotional aspects with lack of religious practices; and of functional capacity with worse financial situation, all with p≤0.042. The specific instrument had a mean score of 45.57 and presented negative associations in the physical domain with female gender; as well as between social life without religious practices and social life with worse financial situation, all with p≤0.047. Conclusion the scores of the specific and generic instruments indicated low Quality of Life influenced by factors such as female gender, advanced age, being divorced/separated, lack of religious practices and having financial problems.