BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Diabetes is a chronic disease that quality of life is one of the very important concepts in this disease. In general quality of life has five aspects including physical, psychological, social, somatic, and spiritual. Since short and long time complications of this disease need to very costs, so the goal of this study was to determine the quality of life of these patients compared with non diabetic people.METHODS: This is a cross sectional study in which a total of 70 patients with type 2 diabetes and 75 non diabetic accompaniers of them were included. This study was performed at Shahid Rajaei hospital in Tonekabon, and Emam Sajjad hospital in Ramsar, IRAN. A questionnaire composed of Persian translations of SF_36 and Sweden QOL (quality of life) questionnaires were used for measuring of HRQL (health related quality of life) after determining its validity and reliability. The questionnaire including demographic data and seven dimensions: physical function, pain, daily activities, feeling, sleep, relation with relatives, and overall health. FINDINGS: The mean and standard deviation (SD) of QOL associated to diabetic patients and non diabetic people was (131.72±25.88) and (97.75±23.8), respectively that demonstrates adverse QOL in diabetic patients, and good QOL in non diabetic people. There was a statistically significant relationship between demographic variable such as age, sex, and quality of life in diabetic and non diabetic groups.CONCLUSION: Since type 2 diabetes cause many changes in QOL, so treatment strategies should be considered to solve this problem.