Polyacrylamide copolymers play an important role in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), whose widespread use aims to improve oil production. Assessment of polymer in the produced water is thus required for monitoring the oilfield operation and for environmental concerns. However, this task is challenging due to the matrix complexity and the possible degradation of the macromolecule during the process. Among the different methods for polymer determination, total organic carbon (TOC) is advantageous in comparison to others reported in the literature because of its low cost, easy operation and short analysis time. Due to this, a TOC method was developed for the determination of polyacrylamide content, and the influence of salinity, molar mass, and two types of chemical degradation (by hydrolysis and Fe2+/O2) on the polymer quantification through this method were explored in this work. Rheological measurements, NMR and ATR-FTIR analyses were also carried out to evaluate the extent of degradation. The polymer quantification was not affected in the presence of different salt contents. Similarly, analyses of samples with different molar masses did not affect TOC results. The hydrolysis degree of the polymers was confirmed by 13C NMR and ATR-FTIR, while rheological measurements confirmed degradation by Fe2+/O2. Noticeably, both degradation mechanisms investigated did not impair polyacrylamide determination. For all factors evaluated, the errors were never greater than 8 percent. The results obtained highlight the TOC as a suitable and reliable method for the determination of polyacrylamide with good accuracy, showing its potential application in the analysis of real samples.