OBJECTIVETo explore the current television viewing situation among children less than 4 years of age in our country and investigate effects of television viewing on sleep quality.

METHODAccording to the"Hospital of Province-City-County"sampling technical route, a total of 1 046 full term healthy children at the age of 4-48 months were sampled by stratified cluster random sampling method from 8 provinces in China from 2012-2013. The information of television viewing and family and personal information was investigated by Shanghai Children's Medical Center Socio-demographic Questionnaire. Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ) and Brief Child Sleep Questionnaire (BCSQ) were employed to assess the sleep behaviors of children 0-3 years old and over 3 years old respectively.The effects of television viewing on sleep quality were analyzed by multiple linear regression analysis.

RESULTThe children's average age was (20±13) months, with boys accounted for 53.3% (558/1 046). The percentage of children who viewed television was 70.3% (735/1 046). Moreover, 58.7% (408/695) of infants and young children under the age of 2 viewed TV per day, and 19.9% (70/351) of 2 years and older infants and young children viewed television ≥2 hours per day. With the increase of age, the percentage of children who viewed television time gradually increased (P<0.001). Child sex, geographic area, paternal education, and family structure were not associated with television viewing time among children aged 4-48 months. However, the presence of a bedroom TV(χ(2)=13.682, P=0.001) and maternal employment (χ(2)=15.053, P=0.005) were commonly correlated with long screen-watching time among children. After adjusting for age, gender, mother' education level, and working state, it was revealed by multiple linear regression analysis that television viewing was not only positively correlated with later bedtime (t=5.49, P<0.001) and shorter night sleep duration (t=-3.49, P=0.001) but also significantly associated with longer sleep onset latency (t=2.63, P=0.009).

CONCLUSIONThe percentage of children under 4 years of age who viewed television is very high in our country, and many infants under 6 months of age exposed to TV environment. Bedroom TV and mother full-time job were associated with higher proportion of children viewing TV. In early childhood, television viewing was positively correlated with later bedtime, shorter sleep duration and longer sleep onset latency. There is a need for parents and pediatricians to pay more attention to the behavior of children viewing TV and improve sleep quality.