Objective To evaluate the reliability and validity of SF-36 scale for life quality assessment of naval service personnel, and to understand the status and influencing factors of health-related quality of life. Methods The SF-36 scale was used to evaluate the quality of life of the naval service personnel in a regional military hospital in 2016. Results A total of 180 questionnaires were sent out, 162 questionnaires were recovered and 149 valid questionnaires were left for analysis. SF-36 scale had good internal-consistency reliability and split-half reliability, and had good convergent validity and discriminate validity. The males scored lower than the females in three dimensions, including bodily pain, social functioning and role-emotional, and the differences were significant (all P<0.05). Compared with the males in the same age group of national survey, the males of this survey scored significantly lower in physiological functioning, role-physical, bodily pain, social functioning and role-emotional, and scored significantly higher in general health (all P<0.05). The females of this survey scored significantly higher in general health and role-emotional than the females of the national survey (both P<0.05). Correlation analysis showed that having chronic disease, the quality of sleep, gender and physical discomfort in the last 2 weeks were the main influencing factors in each dimension of SF-36 scale. Conclusion The SF-36 scale can be used for evaluating the health-related quality of life of the naval service personnel, and improving the quality of sleep, controlling chronic diseases and reducing the short-term physical discomfort can help to improve the quality of life of naval service personnel.