Illness perception is understood as the way individuals understand and cope with their disease. The objective of this paper was to identify articles in literature developed by nurses on disease perception, and the instruments available to assess it. An integrative literature review was performed, which identified nine papers that related to the perception of the disease with Health Education, Coping, Treatment adherence and quality of life. Ways of assessing this phenomenon were also identified. It was concluded that nurses should periodically assess the perception of illness by validated instruments, along with the use of nursing diagnoses reported by NANDA International (NANDA-I).