[Design of a Measuring Scale to Evaluate the Degree of Living with a Chonic Illness, Such as Parkinson's Disease].

Introduction: Understanding how a person lives with chronic illness is necessary to provide care according to the individual's needs. Nowadays, there is no validated scale to measure how the person is living with a chronic condition, such as Parkinson's disease.

Objectives: The objectives were to: 1) define the concept of Living with a chronic illness; 2) design a measuring scale of the degree of Living with a chronic illness, in particular with Parkinson's disease.

Methodology: Two methodological steps were carried out. Regarding the first methodological step, a concept analysis of Living with a chronic illness was done using Rodgers' evolutionary method. the second methodological step was the design of the scale, following DeVellis guideline.

Results: Through the concept analysis it was identified that Living with a chronic illness is a complex, dynamic, cyclic and multidimensional process, involving the attributes of Acceptance, Coping, Self-management, Integration and Adjustment. In relation to the design of the scale, it was developed a self-reported measure, with five Likert response options and 27 items.

Conclusions: The designed scale, is an innovative measure with a high potential interest in clinical community to identify with are the factor(s) that make the person have a positive or negative living with the disease. Consequently, nurses could intervene in a holistic way, according to the patient individual needs.