  Located at the galactic anticenter, Sh 2-284 is a HII region which harbors
several young open clusters; Dolidze 25, a rare metal poor (Z~0.004) young
cluster, is one of these. Given its association with Sh 2-284, it is reasonable
to assume the low metallicity for the whole HII region. Sh~2-284 is expected to
host a significant population of Pre-Main Sequence (PMS) stars of both low and
intermediate mass stars (Herbig Ae stars). We aim at characterizing these stars
by means of a spectroscopic and photometric survey conducted with VIMOS@VLT and
complemented with additional optical and infrared observations. In this survey
we selected and characterized 23 PMS objects. We derived the effective
temperature, the spectral energy distribution and luminosity of these objects;
using theoretical PMS evolutionary tracks, with the appropriate metallicity, we
estimated the mass and the age of the studied objects. We also estimated a
distance of 4 Kpc for Sh 2-284 by using spectroscopic parallax of 3 OB stars.
From the age determination we concluded that triggered star formation is in act
in this region. Our results show that a significant fraction of the young
stellar objects (YSOs) may have preserved their disk/envelopes, in contrast
with what is found in other recent studies of low-metallicity star forming
regions in the Galaxy. Finally, among the 23 bona fide PMS stars, we identified
8 stars which are good candidates to pulsators of the delta Scuti type.
