International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Article Uptake of Skilled Maternal Healthcare in Ethiopia: A Positive Deviance Approach Seman K. Ousman 1,2,*, Jeanette H. Magnus 2,3, Johanne Sundby 4 and Mekdes K. Gebremariam 5 1 St Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC), Addis Ababa 22728/1000, Ethiopia 2 Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, 1078 Oslo, Norway;
[email protected] 3 Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA 4 Institute of Health and Society, HELSAM, University of Oslo, N-0316 Oslo, Norway;
[email protected] 5 Department of Nutrition, University of Oslo, 0317 Oslo, Norway;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +251-911-176-515 Received: 11 December 2019; Accepted: 3 March 2020; Published: 5 March 2020 Abstract: Risk factor approaches are often used when implementing programs aimed at enforcing advantageous health care behaviors. A less frequently-used strategy is to identify and capitalize on those who, despite risk factors, exhibit positive behaviors. The aim of our study was to identify positive deviant (PD) mothers for the uptake of skilled maternal services and to explore their characteristics. Data for the study came from two waves of the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Surveys conducted in 2011 and in 2016. PD mothers were defined as those reporting no formal education but with adequate use of antenatal care (ANC) and/or institutional delivery services. Two-level multilevel regression analysis was used to analyze the data.