【Abstract】Objective To investigate the risk factors of quality of life in elderly inpatients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and to explore its correlation with exercise tolerance. Methods A retrospective analysis was made of the clinical data of 285 elderly CHD patients hospitalized in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from January 2022 to October 2023. On admission, exercise tolerance and quality of life were evaluated using the 《Basic Guidelines for Coronary Heart Disease Rehabilitation (2020)》 and health status questionnaire. The quality of life scores of elderly CHD inpatients with different exercise tolerance were compared, and the correlation between exercise tolerance and quality of life was analyzed by Spearman′s correlation coefficient. At the same time, the patients′ clinical data and information were collected, and their quality of life scores with different clinical characteristics were compared. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the risk factors affecting the quality of life of elderly CHD inpatients. SPSS statistics 22.0 was used for statistical analysis. Data comparison between two groups was performed using t test,χ2 test or analysis of variance depending on data type. Results There were significant differences in the quality of life scores of the elderly CHD inpatients with different exercise tolerance. The quality of life scores of patients with > 7 metabolic equivalents ( METs) was significantly higher than those of patients with 5-7 METs and < 5 METs, while the quality of life scores of patients with 5-7 METs was significantly higher than those of patients with < 5 METs, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The exercise tolerance was positively correlated with all dimensions of quality of life and total score in elderly CHD inpatients (P<0.05). Quality of life scores of elderly CHD inpatients differed with age, New York Heart Association (NYHA) cardiac function grade, CHD duration, education level, number of chronic diseases, monthly income, exercise tolerance and revascularization, and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05 for all). Multivariate logistic regression analysis confirmed that age ≥70 years (OR=1.930,95%CI 1.189-3.133), NYHA class Ⅲ/Ⅳ (OR=1.230,95%CI 1.028-1.472), CHD duration ≥5 years (OR=3.102,95%CI 1.475-6.524), junior high school education (OR=2.287,95%CI 1.174-4.455), ≥3 chronic diseases (OR=1.577,95%CI 1.015-2.450), monthly income <2 000 yuan (OR=2.149,95%CI 1.374-3.361), exercise tolerance ≤7 METs (OR=3.775,95%CI 1.159-12.296), and no revascularization (OR=3.987,95%CI 1.178-13.492) were the risk factors affecting the quality of life of elderly CHD inpatients (P<0.05 for all). Conclusion Exercise tolerance is significantly correlated with quality of life in elderly CHD inpatients. Age ≥70 years, NYHA class Ⅲ/Ⅳ, CHD course ≥5 years, junior high school education, three or more comorbid chronic diseases, monthly income <2 000 yuan, exercise tolerance ≤7 METs, and no revascularization were risk factors affecting the quality of life of elderly CHD inpatients. The management of these factors should be strengthened clinically to improve patients′ quality of life.