The Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) is a questionnaire that assesses health related quality of life. The aim of this paper is to test the psychometric quality of the instrument based on a subject sample which is representative for the German population. The sample consisted of 1996 persons with ages between 18 and 92 years. They were asked to fill in several questionnaires including the NHP. The results show that the NHP does not differentiate between subjects in the range of low and medium levels of complaints. Only one half of the subject sample agreed to at least one of the 38 items. All six subscales showed significant age and sex effects which were proved with nonlinear regression analyses. The validity was assessed through correlations with other health related questionnaires. It can be concluded that the use of the NHP cannot be recommended when studies in the general population are conducted.