Introduction:

The nursing area should perform a comprehensive assessment of adolescents and young people to be able to have an early intervention in the risk habits of this part of the population.

Objective:

Know how the consumption of energy drinks affects the mental health of adolescents and young adults.

Methodology:

Systematic review using selected reports for systematic reviews and PRISMA meta-analysis, searching Web Of Science, Medline, Scopus and Pubmed databases with descriptors such as energy drinks, mental health, young adult and adolescent. The inclusion criteria included articles published between 2017 and 2022, in Spanish, English or Portuguese, in the population aged 13 to 25, excluding secondary research, editorials, letters to the editor and expert opinions, not available in full text. Identifying 372 articles, leaving a sample of 10 for analysis and methodological evaluation using CASPe guidelines. Data used were duly referenced, respecting and identifying their authors.

Results:

The majority were studies using cross-sectional design. Frequent consumption of energy drinks increased levels of anxiety, depression, aggression and suicidal risk, with male adolescents being more affected.

Conclusions:

Although there was evidence of a relationship between energy drink consumption and mental health risks, most of the research used cross-sectional designs, so it was not possible to determine causality or direction of effect. In order to study the effect of energy drink consumption in depth, longitudinal studies and interventions are required since consumption is frequent and mental health problems are on the rise.