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Category: Project

Description: Introduction: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a clustering of three to five specific non-communicable diseases that greatly increases an individual’s risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Although previously labelled as a disease afflicting older persons, evidence indicated that younger people were increasingly affected. Hence, countries have studied the disease in younger populations, but research is still lacking in lower- to middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly on the African continent. A scoping review will be conducted to document research that investigated adolescent MetS in Africa, the criteria used to measure this disease in African adolescents, the reported prevalence and extent, as well as the sociodemographic, behavioural, psychosocial, and environmental determinants of adolescent MetS in Africa. Methods and analysis: The protocol for the proposed scoping review was guided by the high-level steps originally outlined by Arksey and O’Malley, and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist. We will search and screen descriptive studies published from 1 January 2001 to 28 February 2023. We will use keywords and medical subject headings (MeSH) terms to search electronic databases. Two researchers will screen identified peer-reviewed and grey literature independently, select articles using the inclusion criteria, chart the data, describe the quantitative characteristics of the literature, perform qualitative content analysis, and report the findings. Ethics and dissemination: We do not require ethics approval as we are reviewing published literature. The results of the scoping review will form part of a Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of the Western Cape and will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.