Objective The aim of this paper is to analyse the quality of life (QOL) of undergraduate nursing students. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study with 206 students conducted in July 2013, in the city of Picos/PI, Brazil. Data were collected using the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. The Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to analyse the data with a significance level of 5%. Results The domains with the best average scores were Physical (69.4) and Social Relations (74.3), and the domains with the worst average scores were Psychological (68.5) and Environment (54.2). For the overall assessment, the average was 66.6+10.8. A statistical significance was observed when crossing QOL with number of children (p = 0.029), where students without children performed better. Conclusion These results allow the early detection of difficulties experienced by nursing students and may support strategies that benefit the search for solutions to conflicts that affect QOL.