Objective  To examine the status of electronic products use and the effect of home environment on the usage among preschool children in urban Yangzhou and to provide evidences for guiding rational use of electronic products in the children.

  Methods  A total of 2 531 children were selected with stratified cluster random sampling from 7 kindergartens in urban areas of Yangzhou city and main caregivers of the children were surveyed with a questionnaire between April and May 2015.

  Results  Most of the preschool children (98.00 %) were reported to use at least one type of electronic product every day and 63.53 % of the users spent more than one hour in using electronic products per day; 67.05 % of the children were reported to use touch-screen products every day and 15.21 % of the users spent more than one hour in using the products per day. For all the preschool children, the average time spent in using electronic products per day was 1.68 ± 1.45 hours, with longer time during weekend than during a weekday and the most used product was television set, followed by mobile phone and iPad. Univariate analysis showed that electronic product use was associated with the age of the children, parental education, household income, and main caregiver; multivariate logistic regression revealed that low maternal education level (odds ratioOR = 6.45) and cared by grandparents or caregivers other than parents were risk factors for electronic products use among the preschool children.

  Conclusion  Electronic product use is quite popular among preschool children in urban Yangzhou, especially among those with a mother having lower education and those cared by grandparents or someone other that parents; the parents of the preschool children should pay more attentions to their children’s rational use ofelectronic products.