The study reported here investigates (a) whether certain staff in psychiatric hospitals are more prone to being assaulted; (b) whether such proneness can be defined in terms of fixed attributes of these individuals (e.g. sex, personality); and (c) whether staff and patients with certain attributes are regularly combined in violent incidents. The characteristics of 65 nurses and 22 patients involved in 100 consecutive violent incidents were examined. A quarter of hospital staff were assaulted over 3 months but few were assaulted repeatedly. Those who were assaulted more than once were usually assaulted by the same patient, indicating problematic relationships rather than problematic individuals. Only two variables (age and grade) varied significantly between the assaulted and control group staff. It is argued that future research should focus on staff and patient behaviour in violent incidents rather than the characteristics of each.