Women stockpile meds, power through illness

As many as 43% of women keep a cough-cold product in their desk during the winter months “just in case” they get sick, according to a survey conducted on behalf of WorkPlace Impact. And taking preventive measures is a big deal for these women — 73.3% rely on hand sanitizer to help keep them well during cough-cold season, 65.3% rely on vitamins to boost their immune systems and 60.9% make sure to get their annual flu shot to keep from getting sick.

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Four-in-10 women stock up on cough-cold medicines before the season even gets started. Tissues (70.4%) top the list of products women make sure they have on hand, followed by cold medication (64.9%) and hand sanitizer (56.7%). When they get a cold, most women buy a cold remedy that matches their symptoms (71.4%) and more tissues (58.4%).



When sick, 36.3% of working women will power through the illness in order to go to work, and 31% will make the decision to tough it out or stay home based on what’s going on at work at the time. When asked about the reasons they go to work sick, most were concerned about the effect missing work would have on workload, with 73.7% indicating that they would be concerned about not getting work done. Nearly half (45.8%) indicated that they would feel guilty about missing work, and 15.6% stated that having little or no sick time is a reason they would decide to go to work.



The convenience of a drug store makes that channel an ideal one-stop-shop for women with a cold — 45.1% of women stop by their local retail pharmacy for a cough-cold remedy when they’re sick, followed by grocery stores (25%) and discounters (21.3%).



The online survey was completed by WorkPlace Impact among 6,683 working women in May 2014.