Malaga records 310 assaults on healthcare workers in 2025: one in five are physical
Almost 75 per cent of those attacked in Malaga province are women, with doctors and nurses the victims in over 82 per cent of the cases
In 2025, Malaga recorded a total of 310 attacks on healthcare workers in Andalucía's public health service (SAS), 66 of them physical assaults and 244 non-physical (insults, harassment, threats, insults and so on).
This represents a slight decrease compared to 2024, when there were 318 incidents, 69 physical and 249 non-physical, according to data from the regional health ministry. Thus, one in five attacks are physical.
By gender, women were the most frequent victims, accounting for 74.04 per cent of the cases. By professional profile, more than 82 per cent of the attacks were suffered by healthcare personnel, primarily doctors and nurses.
According to RIAC (the centre that electronically logs incidents in Spain's public healthcare facilities), in 2025, 387 physical assaults (19.6 per cent of the total) and 1,589 non-physical assaults on healthcare professionals were recorded for all Andalucía. Of these, 1,976 (or 48.63 percent), occurred in hospitals and 51.37 per cent in primary care centres.
Strengthening prevention
In 2025, the majority of recorded assaults were non-physical, both in primary care and hospitals. In the case of primary care, 90.25 per cent of incidents were non-physical assaults, while in hospitals, this percentage was 70.03, highlighting the need to continue strengthening prevention measures, especially regarding insults, threats and intimidating behaviour.
According to Andalucía's regional government, the data shows a containment of the growth in attacks detected in previous years. For instance, in 2024 there were 1,866 attacks (362 physical and 1,504 non-physical), 19 per cent more than in 2023, while the increase this last year has been 5.9 per cent.
The regional health ministry believes that the analysis of the evolution of assaults in the period 2020-2025, together with the incidence rate per thousand professionals, confirms the importance of continuing to work on prevention, awareness and the proper recording of all incidents, both physical and non-physical. In this regard, the improved record-keeping explains a significant portion of the increase in attacks and reflects both greater awareness among professionals and the implementation of a zero-tolerance policy towards any type of aggression.
Almost half the physical assaults in Andalucía are committed by individuals with mental health problems or cognitive impairment.
It should be noted that, in accordance with the plan, cases of physical violence or serious threats perpetrated by psychiatric or cognitively-impaired patients will be considered assaults. However, a system has been established to filter these cases and ensure they receive differentiated treatment, both in the record-keeping process and in subsequent actions taken. Of the total number of assaults, 21.31 per cent are committed by individuals with mental health problems or cognitive impairment, a percentage that rises to 48.58 when it comes to physical assaults.
The Junta has redoubled its commitment to training: in the last year alone, 100 drills have been carried out in healthcare centres and 743 professionals have been trained in verbal de-escalation techniques, actions aimed at improving safety and response capacity in risky situations.
Andalucía's public health service (SAS) presented the 2025 assault data this Friday at the Junta's technical committee on occupational risk prevention in order to delve deeper into the number of recorded incidents, their characteristics, which healthcare settings and professional profiles.
