Objectives:This study aimed to explore the reporting of workplace violence against nurses and the reasons why they did not reported.Methods:A self-designed questionnaire regarding workplace violence and reporting was used to conduct a cross-sectional survey on nurses who submitted a manuscript to a Chinese nursing journal from 2016 to 2017.A total of 324 nurses agreed to participate in this study and 266 participants from 165 hospitals in 72 cities returned questionnaires.Results:A total of 172 nurses(64.7％)experienced violent incidents during the past year.Of these in-cidents,45.5％were reported;and the reporting rate of physical assaults(69.0％)was higher than those of verbal abuse(36.9％),threatening behavior(51.7％),and sexual harassment(60.0％).Formal reporting accounted for 25.4％(15.4％in written form and 10.0％through a computer-assisted reporting system).Almost half of the nurses(49.6％)stated that the hospital had no reporting system or they were uncertain about the reporting system.For reasons of not reporting,51.9％of the nurses were unware of how and what types of violence to report,and 50.6％of the nurses believed that the hospital paid greater attention to patients rather than staff.Conclusions:A clear definition of workplace violence and reporting procedures,establishment of a facile system for reporting,and supervisory support following a reporting are urgently required.