Development of a web and mobile application for drug abuse information awareness

Abstract

The harmful use of illicit drugs, “Drug Abuse”, is the most frequent problem in the world. The awareness creation of drug abuse information to the community reduces the usage of illegal drugs. The collection and management of addicts’ data, statistics about addicts, storage and accessibility of drug abuse information are conducted on paper-based approaches. This results in several problems such as loss of data, time consumption in data collection and delay in reporting. This study aimed to improve accessibility of drug abuse information through development of mobile application for addicts’ data collection and web application for accessibility of drug abuse information awareness and retrieval of treatment center reports. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews and observations. The study shows that there is limited information on drug abuse issues to the community. The developed mobile and web applications were evaluated and tested through field study to assess usability and effective of data entry. The applications improve accessibility of drug abuse information, addicts’ data collection and reporting, statistics on drug usage and number of addicts on treatment, storage of addicts’ information and improving awareness program conducted by the drug control commission. Thus, provides drug abuse information awareness to the community, policy makers and researchers. The viability of both developed mobile and web application is to minimize resources such as human effort, cost, and time consumption during data collection, as well as appropriate storage of addicts’ data. A case study of Dar es Salaam and Arusha regions in Tanzania.