Abstract: Objective: To investigate the dietary behavior of preschool-aged children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) during hospitalization for chemotherapy and to analyze the influencing factors. Methods: A convenience sampling method was used to select preschool-aged children with ALL who were hospitalized for chemotherapy and their caregivers in two tertiary grade A hospitals in Hangzhou and Wenzhou, Zhejiang province from August, 2021 to January, 2022. The general information questionnaire, Preschooler's Dietary Behavior Scale (PEBS) and the Parental Feeding Style Questionnaire (PFSQ) were applied to collect the data. Results: The total dietary behavior score was 95.39±9.92, and the incidence of dietary behavior problems was 53.7% in preschool-aged children with ALL. The results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that age, symptoms of gastrointestinal reactions, education level of caregiver, instrumental feeding and emotional feeding were the influencing factors of dietary behavior problems in children with ALL (P<0.001), explaining a total of 38.3% of the total variance. Conclusion: There is a high incidence of dietary behavior problems in preschool-aged children with ALL during chemotherapy. Clinical nurses should pay more attention to those with 3 to 4 years old, with obvious gastrointestinal symptoms during chemotherapy, and do feeding education and guidance for caregivers who are less educated and use instrumental feeding and emotional feeding styles, to improve the quality of nutritional care and promote the recovery of children.

Key words: acute lymphoblastic leukemia; preschool-aged children; dietary behavior; influencing factor