Nursing union reports 48,000+ aggression cases against nurses in early 2026

The nursing union Nursing Up has released estimates indicating that approximately 48,760 nurses in the Italian National Health Service were victims of physical or verbal aggression during the first six months of 2026. This figure averages to roughly 270 incidents per day or 11 per hour.

The estimates are based on applying a 33% violence rate—previously identified by the CEASE-IT scientific research study coordinated by the University of Genoa—to the current official nursing workforce of 297,983. Based on this calculation, the union estimates that 98,334 nurses face aggression annually.

A major concern highlighted by the union is the significant level of underreporting. Antonio De Palma, national president of Nursing Up, noted that official reports and workplace injury records from INAIL do not reflect the true scale of the problem. Previous comparisons showed a massive gap between the 130,000 victims estimated by research and the 5,000 incidents officially recorded as workplace injuries, suggesting that many incidents never enter official systems.