unused medicines donations and proper handling system.

Dadgarmoghaddam et al. investigated unused medicines in households and described the issue as one that can create social and economic problems [1]. Their work identifies several circumstances associated with unused medicines, including recovery, side effects, changes in treatment, and other causes of accumulation. This establishes the household as an important point at which medicines can either remain unused or enter an appropriate return, donation, or disposal pathway. The proposed system addresses this stage by allowing a household user to record medicines that are no longer required. Rather than leaving the medicine information unstructured, the platform creates a searchable listing containing relevant attributes such as medicine name, quantity, expiry date, condition, and location.

Wang, Aziz, and Chik conducted a cross-sectional study involving 1,184 participants in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. Their study found that 995 respondents (84%) reported having unused medicines, while approximately one quarter kept unused medicines in a cabinet and another quarter disposed of them in the trash or toilet [2]. These findings demonstrate the relevance of awareness and appropriate disposal mechanisms. The proposed platform therefore includes a handling and disposal information component. The system is not intended to determine clinical safety or replace professional pharmaceutical judgment. Instead, it can display expiry information, provide warnings, and direct unsuitable or expired medicines toward appropriate disposal or return guidance.

Kumar et al. developed an online web portal for donating unused medicine to NGOs [3]. Their work demonstrates a direct application of information technology to the medicine-donation problem and provides a basis for the proposed digital coordination model. The proposed system extends this concept by considering multiple participation modes. A donor may list a medicine for another user, an NGO, or a participating pharmacy. Users may also create medicine requests, allowing the system to support both supply and demand. Location-based discovery can reduce unnecessary search and help users identify relevant nearby listings.

Sarla reviewed expiry dates, drug potency, storage, health considerations, and disposal of unused and expired medicines [4]. The study reinforces the importance of distinguishing expired medicines from medicines that may be considered for an appropriate return or redistribution pathway. Accordingly, the proposed system stores expiry dates and applies status labels such as available, expiring soon, and expired. An expired listing is not made available for ordinary donation through the platform. The application instead provides appropriate handling or disposal guidance.

Muthov´a et al. examined whether additional information could influence the handling of unused medicines [5]. Their empirical study reported a 10% increase in claimed return of unused and expired medicines among respondents who received additional information compared with the control group. This work is particularly relevant to the awareness component of the proposed system. Instead of treating information as an optional external resource, the application can present handling reminders, expiry awareness, and disposal guidance during relevant user interactions.

The reviewed literature provides separate contributions: household accumulation studies explain why medicines remain unused [1], disposal studies describe handling behaviour [2], digital-platform research demonstrates online donation coordination [3], expiry-focused work emphasizes responsible handling [4], and behavioural research supports the use of information and reminders [5]. The proposed system combines these concepts into one software platform. The additional contribution of the proposed design is a contribution-point mechanism that recognizes responsible participation. The points are intended as non-cash recognition rather than payment for medicines. This feature is designed to encourage completion of legitimate platform activities such as successful donation and verified handover. 3. Methodology

The system was designed around four categories of users: •Donor/Recipient:lists unused medicines, searches listings, creates requests, accepts requests, and tracks transactions. •NGO:maintains an organization profile, identifies medicine requirements, receives suitable donations, and records completed handovers. •Pharmacy:participates as an authorized collection or handling point according to its operational role and applicable procedures. •Administrator:manages users, organizations, listings, reports, and platform-level records. The core requirements are user authentication, medicine listing, search, request management, location-based discovery, expiry checks, notifications, organization participation, contribution points, and transaction history.

The proposed architecture consists of a mobile application and web portal connected to a REST-based backend. The backend manages authentication, medicine records, requests, matching, reward points, notifications, and administrative operations. A database stores structured information, while a map or location service supports location-based discovery. Mobile Application Web Portal REST API Backend Database Location, Notifications & Rewards

Figure 1: High-level architecture of the proposed system.

A donor creates a listing containing the medicine name, quantity, expiry date, condition, photograph, and approximate location. The listing is checked for basic completeness and expiry status before becoming searchable. A recipient can search by medicine name and location. The matching process uses the following conceptual criteria: 1. medicine name or relevant medicine identifier; 2. availability status; 3. expiry status; 4. geographic proximity; 5. requested quantity, where applicable. The system does not claim that a medicine is clinically safe for a recipient. Instead, it provides information and routes the transaction through the appropriate user or organization process.

The main transaction workflow is: 1. Donor creates a medicine listing. 2. System checks required information and expiry date. 3. Nearby users or participating organizations discover the listing. 4. A recipient submits a request. 5. Donor or authorized organization reviews the request. 6. The request is accepted or rejected. 7. Handover or collection is arranged. 8. The transaction is marked completed. 9. The contribution-point system records the eligible activity. The status model can therefore be represented as: Available→Requested→Accepted→Completed. Rejected, cancelled, or expired listings are maintained separately from active donation inventory.

The reward mechanism is designed to recognize responsible participation rather than assign monetary value to medicines. Example activities include successful donations, verified handovers, collection assistance, and reporting unsuitable listings. Table 1: Illustrative contribution-point model Activity Points Successful donation +10 Verified handover +10 Donation through participating organization +15 Collection or delivery assistance +5 Report of unsuitable listing +5 Points can be displayed on the user’s profile and converted into non-cash recognition such as badges or achievement levels. The system should prevent duplicate or fraudulent point awards by generating points only after a transaction reaches the required verified status.

The application is designed as an information and coordination platform rather than a clinical certification system. Basic controls include:

• mandatory expiry-date entry;
• warning for medicines approaching expiry;
• prevention of obviously expired listings from ordinary donation;
• display of storage and handling information where available;
• reporting mechanism for unsuitable or suspicious listings;
• disposal or return guidance for medicines not suitable for redistribution. This approach is intended to reduce unsafe assumptions about medicine quality. Actual acceptance and handling can remain subject to applicable laws, professional procedures, organizational policies, and pharmacy requirements.

The implementation can use React Native for the mobile application, React.js/HTML/CSS/JavaScript for the web portal, Python Flask for backend APIs, and MongoDB or PostgreSQL for data storage. REST APIs connect the client applications with the backend. GPS and a map API can support location-based discovery.

At the current project stage, the primary result is the design of an integrated software workflow rather than a clinical or population-level experiment. The proposed system produces a structured process for moving an unused medicine listing from creation through matching, request handling, handover, and completion. The main functional outputs are:

• a searchable medicine listing system;
• location-based discovery of available listings;
• person-to-person donation workflow;
• NGO and participating-pharmacy participation;
• medicine-request functionality;
• expiry-date status and warnings;
• handling and disposal information;
• donation status tracking;
• contribution points and achievement recognition. These outputs directly address the gaps identified during the literature review by combining donation coordination with information and responsible-participation mechanisms.

Table 2: Relationship between prior work and proposed system Research area Proposed system response Household unused medicines [1] Structured medicine listings and requests Disposal practices [2] Handling and disposal guidance NGO donation portal [3] Multi-party donation and location-based matching Expiry and disposal [4] Expiry recording, warnings, and filtering Behavioural information [5] In-app reminders and awareness content Contribution recognition Points and achievement levels The comparison indicates that the proposed platform is primarily an integration of previously studied concepts with additional coordination and contribution-recognition functionality. The contribution-point mechanism is a software-design feature and has not yet been empirically validated as a behaviour-change intervention in this project.

When the implemented prototype is evaluated, the following measures can be used: 1. successful listing and search completion rate; 2. time required to find a matching listing; 3. percentage of completed versus cancelled requests; 4. accuracy of expiry-status classification; 5. successful recording of contribution points; 6. usability feedback from users, NGOs, and participating pharmacies; 7. number of unsuitable or expired listings correctly blocked or reported. These measures provide a practical basis for evaluating the software without making unsupported claims about clinical outcomes. 5. Discussion The proposed system combines several complementary approaches identified in the reviewed literature. Household studies indicate that unused medicines can accumulate for multiple reasons [1], while disposal research shows that inappropriate disposal remains a relevant concern [2]. A digital donation portal provides a mechanism for connecting medicine holders with organizations [3]. Expiry-related research highlights the need for appropriate handling information [4], and behavioural research indicates that additional information can influence medicine-return behaviour [5]. The proposed architecture brings these components into a single workflow. This is useful from a software-system perspective because a user does not need separate mechanisms for discovering a recipient, checking basic expiry information, learning about handling, and recording the completion of a donation. The contribution-point feature adds a participation layer, allowing the platform to acknowledge users who complete legitimate activities. However, several limitations remain. First, the platform cannot determine whether a medicine is clinically appropriate for a particular recipient solely from its listing information. Second, medicine redistribution is subject to applicable legal, regulatory, and professional requirements that may vary by jurisdiction and medicine type. Third, the contributionpoint mechanism is currently a design proposal; no controlled experiment has established that points increase donation or responsible-handling behaviour. A future evaluation should therefore distinguish between software performance and behavioural impact. Software testing can measure functionality, usability, reliability, and transaction completion. A separate user study would be required to determine whether contribution points, reminders, or other interface interventions actually change user behaviour. 6. Conclusion This paper presented the design of an Unused Medicine Donation and Proper Handling System that combines a mobile application and web portal for coordinating unused medicines. The system supports medicine listings, person-to-person donation, NGO and participating-pharmacy involvement, location-based discovery, medicine requests, status tracking, expiry awareness, and handling guidance. The proposed contribution-point mechanism extends the platform by recognizing responsible participation through noncash points, badges, and achievement levels. The feature is intended to encourage completion and responsible use of the platform without assigning monetary value to medicines. The reviewed literature provides support for addressing household accumulation, disposal practices, digital donation coordination, expiry awareness, and information-based behavioural interventions [1–5]. The proposed system integrates these areas into a single software workflow. Future work should include prototype deployment, usability testing, validation of the reward mechanism, security testing, and evaluation with appropriate organizations and users under applicable medicine-handling requirements.