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The aim of this literature review was to explore the attitudes of health care workers towards inpatient aggression and to analyse the extent to which attitudes, as defined from a theoretical point of view, were addressed in the selected studies. Databases from 1980 up to the present were searched, and a content analysis was done on the items of the selected studies. The concepts 'cognition' and 'attitude' from the framework of 'The Theory of Reasoned Action' served as categories. The self-report questionnaire was the most common instrument used and three instruments specifically designed to measure attitudes were found. These instruments lacked profound validity testing. From a total of 74 items, two thirds focussed on cognitions and only a quarter really addressed attitudes towards aggression. Research was particularly concerned with the cognitions that nurses had about aggression, and attitudes were studied only to a limited extent. Researchers used different instruments, which makes it difficult to compare results across settings.