Recent clinical reports show a sharp rise in the cesarean section rate, particularly in the private hospitals that might be affected by the cognitive variables.

This research was to compare fear of pain, pain catastrophizing, catastrophic cognition and also childbirth attitude in private and public hospitals.

The main aim of this research was to compare fear of pain, pain catastrophizing, catastrophic cognition and also childbirth attitude in private and public hospitals.

Participants were (n = 150) pregnant women from private hospitals who were selected using available sampling method as well as (n = 150) pregnant women from public hospitals who were counter balanced on the basis of the age, education, previous number of deliveries, previous number of cesarean and type of hospital variables. Three questionnaires of fear of pain (FPQ) and catastrophic cognition (CCQ) and childbirth attitude (CAQ) as well as scale of pain catastrophizing (PCS) were administrated.

Multivariate analyses of variance were shown significantly differences for two cognitive variables of “fear of pain” and “catastrophic cognition”, while no significant difference were observed for other variables.

These results suggested fear of pain and catastrophic cognition as important cognitive factors in the increase rate of cesarean labor in private hospitals.