OBJECTIVES In order to assess health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among Chinese-speaking populations, a number of HRQoL instruments originally developed in English in North America or Europe were translated into Chinese over the past two decades. The current study attempted to review the usage of Chinese versions of generic HRQoL instruments including SF-36, SF-12, SF-8, SF-6D, EQ-5D, HUI2, HUI3, and QWB. METHODS MEDLINE and five Chinese databases including CNKI (mainland China), CBM (mainland China), Wanfang (mainland China), CEPS (Taiwan), and HKInChiP (Hong Kong & Macau) were searched up to December 2008 for HRQoL studies in Chinese-speaking populations. RESULTS A total of 1341 relevant original research papers were identified. Approximately three-quarters (73.90%) of papers were published in Chinese journals. The vast majority of papers (91.50%) were published after the year of 2002. In terms of the number of papers, the top three frequently used generic HRQoL instruments were SF-36 (n = 1281), EQ-5D (n = 30), and SF-12 (n = 28). One thousand and sixty-two papers reported HRQoL measured in patient populations, with circulatory diseases being the most frequently studied therapeutic areas (n = 195). Geographically, identified studies were mainly conducted in mainland China (n = 1012), followed by Taiwan (n = 149), Hong Kong (n = 112), Singapore (n = 53), U.S. (n = 10), Canada (n = 4) and Australia (n = 1). Except for Singapore where the majority of studies were used to evaluate instruments, generic HRQoL instruments were mainly used to measure quality of life in other countries or districts. CONCLUSIONS There is a growing body of English and Chinese literature on the measurement of HRQoL using generic HRQoL instruments in Chinese-speaking populations. For better assessment of Chinese-speaking populations, the appropriateness of existing generic HRQoL instruments should be further evaluated in the future.