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Introduction: Cancer regardless of its type and onset do reduce the quality of life of those living with it. Palliative is instituted to improve the quality of life of patients living with cancer. The side-effects of chemotherapy have been affecting the outcome of palliative care.

Aim: The study was carried out to determine the perceived influence of chemotherapy on the quality of life of patients living with cancer under palliative care.

Design: A cross sectional descriptive design was used in assessing 119 patients living with cancer under palliative care undergoing chemotherapy in different wards and clinics in the University College Hospital, Ibadan. A standard and well-designed questionnaire was used, the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of life questionnaire, the EORTC QLQ-C30 version 3.0. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 23.

Results: The mean age was 50±16.051 years. Many (59.8%) of the respondents were females. and (63.8%) predominantly practiced Christianity. About one-third (36%) of the respondents had up to university degree certificate. Most of the respondents had low healthy level of functioning. A large percentage of them had a very low emotional functioning because of chemotherapy. The most perceived influence of chemotherapy on their quality of life was financial difficulties, pain and fatigue. Religion was found to have affected their perceived effect of chemotherapy on their quality of life especially the cognitive functioning (ꭓ² = 7.882, p = 0.019) while gender and educational levels did not.

Conclusion: However, from this study, it has been shown that chemotherapy have no effect on improving the quality of life of patients. Therefore, nurses to pay special cognizance to patients’ quality of life and how such can be improved especially for those under palliative care.