Aggressions against nursing staff have increased in Italy in recent years, and already amount to more than 125,000 recent acts of this type, a report indicates.

Rome, March 13 (RHC)-- Aggressions against nursing staff have increased in Italy in recent years, and already amount to more than 125,000 recent acts of this type, a report indicates.

Barbara Mangiacavalli, president of the National Federation of Nursing Professionals (Fnopi), warned about the seriousness of this situation in statements released Sunday by the specialized digital site Assocarenews, where she said that "the figures are much worse than those that have emerged publicly in recent days".

"Nurses are the category most affected by aggressions in the performance of their work," said Mangiacavalli, since 75.0 percent of the aggressions were carried out against them, according to a survey carried out by eight universities in this country.

The study concluded that, although in the last year only 5,000 incidents of this type were reported, the figure is 26 times higher, since most of the time nurses kept silent out of fear or because they were resigned, even though in 40.0 percent of the cases the violence was physical.

"Many colleagues, not only nurses but all health professionals who are in contact with users, are not reporting especially verbal aggressions, because it almost seems to have become a modality they have to deal with every day," she said.

These attacks are motivated, he explained, by "a series of even important causes that have their roots in different contexts, among them the organizational models and some lack of response suffered by citizens".

The increase in acts of violence, with physical and mental consequences among these specialists, means that "in recent years we have seen many people leaving the profession," warned the Fnopi leader.