Background: Psychological characteristics affect the quality of life. This study aimed at determining the relationship between personal characteristics, internal locus of control , psychological hardiness and nurses’ quality of life.

Methods: In this correlation study, 297 nurses were selected based on Curgesy and Morgan table via multistage cluster sampling among 1023 nurses of the public hospitals of the Urmia city in the year 2015. All of them filled out the questionnaires of  personality characteristics (including neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), internal locus of control, psychological hardiness and quality of life. The data was analyzed by correlation and multiple regression methods with step-by-step model.

 Results: The findings showed a significant negative relationship between neuroticism and the nurses’ quality of life. Furthermore , there was a  positive correlation  between extroversion, openness, agreeableness , conscientiousness , internal locus of control,  psychological hardiness and their quality of life. Among the predictor variables, psychological hardiness, neuroticism, internal locus of control and openness could meaningfully predict 64.7% of the changes of nurses’ quality of life. (P<0.01).

Conclusion: According to the results, by increasing the psychological hardiness, internal locus of control and openness and by decreasing the neuroticism, the nurses’ quality of life could be increased.