Cardiovascular Risk Assessment in Adolescents

Abstract

Introduction: Risk factors during adolescence can lead to the development of cardiovascular diseases, but a timely assessment would allow to know the cardiovascular risk and prevent negative health repercussions.

Objective: To identify instruments for cardiovascular risk assessment in adolescents.

Methods: A scoping review was performed in the MEDLINE, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Virtual Health Library and Cochrane Library databases. The terms adolescent, students, young adult, diagnostic technique and procedures, risk assessment and heart disease risk factors were used, together with the Boolean operators AND and OR. The following inclusion criteria were considered: studies conducted with adolescents from urban or rural areas, and published between 2012 and 2022. The following exclusion criteria were considered: studies with population younger than 9 years and older than 19 years. The results were processed and analyzed using the descriptive-analytic method.

Conclusions: Seven studies were included that point out guidelines for cardiovascular risk assessment in adolescents through instruments or scores with biochemical, physiological, anthropometric, lifestyle and genetic indicators, useful for nursing professionals in clinical and community practice.