Healthcare systems are currently facing challenges in enhancing access and improving the quality of healthcare services around the world, and one of the innovative strategies that have been used to address such challenges is the positive deviance (PD) approach. The approach assumes that identifying, examining, understanding and disseminating solutions to problems that are already available within the community and organisations including the healthcare system can help in bringing improvements at scale. However, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, there is no scoping review, that is, conducted to map and synthesise the available evidence on the use of the PD approach for healthcare system service improvements. Hence, this scoping review aims to map and synthesise resources on the methodologies and reported outcomes and identify gaps and potentials regarding the use of the PD approach in the healthcare system.

Articles will be searched and retrieved in research databases such as PubMed, Embase and Scopus. Retrieved articles will be screened independently for inclusion through a title and, or abstract review. Then, articles that passed the title and abstract review will be screened by reading the full texts. A descriptive mapping and synthesis of the literature will be employed to present data using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews checklist and data will be presented in text, figure and table formats.

The results of this scoping review will be published in peer-reviewed reputable international journals. Furthermore, it will also be disseminated through conference presentations, and popular press to the wider community. However, formal ethical approval is not required as primary data will not be collected.

The public’s accepting attitude toward people living with HIV is crucial in reducing HIV-related stigma and discrimination, increasing people’s access to HIV service. This study examines the inequalities in accepting attitudes toward people living with HIV in Ethiopia from 2005 to 2016.

This cross-sectional study was based on the 2005, 2011 and 2016 Ethiopian Demographic Health Surveys. A total of 17 075, 28 478 and 25 542 adults were included in the 2005, 2011 and 2016 surveys, respectively. Socioeconomic inequality was investigated using the concentration curve and Erreygers’ concentration index (ECI), which is scaled from –1 (pro-poor) to +1 (pro-rich). The ECI was decomposed to identify the contributors to socioeconomic inequality using generalised linear regression with the logit link function.

Accepting attitude toward people living with HIV was 17.9% (95% CI: 16.6%, 19.3%) in 2005, which increased to 33.5% (95% CI: 31.8%, 35.3%) in 2011 and 39.6% (95% CI: 37.6%, 41.9%) in 2016. ECI was 0.342 (p

The current study found that there was pro-rich inequality from 2005 to 2016. People with higher socioeconomic status had a better attitude toward people living with HIV. Comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS, education status, residence, and access to electronic and paper-based media, as well as HIV testing, contribute to a better accepting attitude toward people living with HIV. It is of utmost importance for the country to enhance accepting attitude toward people living with HIV to reduce stigma and discrimination. This requires whole-system response according to the primary healthcare approach toward ending the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the country.