Background: The widespread international use of the 26-item WHO Quality of Life Instrument (WHOQOL-Bref) necessitates the assessment of its factor structure across cultures. For, alternative factor models may provide a better explanation of the data than the WHO 4-and 6-domain models. The objectives of the study were: to assess the factor structure of the WHOQOL-Bref in a Sudanese general population sample; and use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and path analysis (PA) to see how well the model thus generated fits into the WHOQOL-Bref data of Sudanese psychiatric patients and their family caregivers.