Objective   To investigate the prevalence and influencing factors of poor sleep quality in preschool children in Chizhou city, Anhui province, and to provide evidences for improving children′s sleep health．

  Methods   An on-site self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted among parents of 1815 children aged 3 – 6 years recruited with stratified random cluster sampling from 14 kindergartens in districts/counties of Chizhou city during June – July 2020. The Children′s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) – Chinese Version and a self-designed questionnaire were used in the survey.

  Results  Of the 1 758 children (96.9% of the all children) with valid information, 76.3% were assessed as having poor sleep quality; the detection rates were 85.6% for bad bedtime habit, 46.6% for prolonged sleep latency, 46.6% for irregular sleep duration, 84.7% for sleep anxiety, 19.4% for waking up at night, 45.1% for parasomnia, 11.0% for sleep-disordered breathing, and 71.0% for daytime sleepiness, respectively. The results of multivariate unconditional logistic regression analysis showed that sharing one bed with relatives, sleeping in a separate bed but the same room with relatives, with a primary caregiver having the bedtime of not earlier than 22 o'clock, and with a primary caregiver using electronic products before bedtime were the risk factors for poor sleep quality of the preschool children; while, with a quiet sleeping environment and having siestas habit were the protective factors against poor sleep quality; the results also demonstrated that the children′s various poor sleep behaviors were significantly affected by following factors: in terms of risk effect (1) mean time of ≥ 30 minutes for each time of using electronic products for bad sleeping habit, (2) sharing one bed with relatives and sleeping in separate bed but in the same room with relatives for bad sleeping habit/sleep anxiety, (3) with a primary caregiver having the bedtime of not earlier than 22 o'clock for prolonged sleep latency/daytime spleepiness, (4) being a boy and with a primary caregiver using electronic products before bedtime for parasomnia; and in terms of protective effect (1) with a quiet sleeping environment against bad sleeping habit/prolonged sleep latency/irregular sleep duration/waking up at night/parasomnia/daytime sleepiness, (2) having siestas habit against irregular sleep duration, and (3) aged 5 – 6 years against sleep anxiety.

  Conclusion   Among preschool children in Chizhou city, the prevalence rate of poor sleep quality, mainly manifested as unhealthy sleeping habit, is relatively high and affected significantly by sleeping environment, siestas habit, primary caregiver′s bedtime and electronic product usage before bedtime.