Early Warning Assessment Tools for Cardiovascular Disease Risk: a Scoping Review

Background Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of human mortality worldwide, characterized by its insidious onset, intricate and variable course, and poor prognosis. Early identification and active intervention of potentially critically ill patients is essential to improve their prognosis. Objective To conduct a scoping review of the research on early warning assessment tools for cardiovascular disease risk at home and abroad, summarize and analyze their assessment content and application, ultimately providing reference for the selection of appropriate early warning tools for cardiovascular disease patients in China. Methods CNKI, Wanfang Data, VIP, CBM, PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, CINAHL, and Scopus were systematically searched from inception to May 2023. Two investigators independently screened literature and extracted data, analyzed in terms of assessment content, study subjects, validation method, reliability and validity, and predictive efficacy. Results A total of 16 papers were included, comprising 7 papers on the development and validation of assessment tools and 9 papers on the localized application of these tools, involving 20 early warning assessment tools for cardiovascular disease risk. The results of the analysis showed that each assessment tool contained 3 to 17 assessment items, with the most frequently mentioned items of age, systolic blood pressure, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, heart rate, comorbidities, level of consciousness, and gender. The results of the reliability and validity tests for 2 papers indicated robust reliability and validity, while all other studies lacked reliability and validity evaluations. Ten papers reported the area under the curve (AUC), with values ranging from 0.550 to 0.926 9. Conclusion Diverse early warning assessment tools for cardiovascular disease risk are available, however, their overall quality remains to be improved and there is a lack of specific assessment tools. In the future, it is imperative to conduct further validations of the reliability and validity of the existing tools, and develop localized early warning assessment tools specialized for cardiovascular diseases considering the unique characteristics of the disease, which exhibit robust reliability and validity.