The RETHINK Study: Could pain catastrophising explain why some women are more likely to attend hospital during the latent phase of labour

•Advice to stay home in latent phase labour is unsettling for women.•Women whopain catastrophise are more likely to seek latent phase hospital admission.•Over a quarter of pregnant nulliparous women are pain catastrophisers.•Pain Catastrophizing is strongly associated with Fear of Childbirth.•Using the Pain Catastrophizing Scale could identify fear of childbirth in pregnancy. To examine the prevalence of pain catastrophising and identify whether it impacts on the timing of hospital admission when in labour. A longitudinal cohort study. Nulliparous women, experiencing an uncomplicated pregnancy in England, were recruited between 25 and 33 weeks gestation. Participants completed two online questionnaires, (1) on recruitment, including the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) and the Wijma Delivery Expectancy Questionnaire (WDEQ-A) (2) at three weeks postnatal. A total of 389 eligible participants entered the study. The percentage of women who were pain catastrophisers (PCS ≥ 20) was 28.1 %, while 7.6 % had a high pain catastrophising score (PCS ≥ 30). There was no association between pain catastrophising and the timing of hospital admission. The percentage of women reporting fear of childbirth (WDEQ-A score of ≥ 85) was 10.6 %. Fear of childbirth was highly associated with PCS scores (p