AbstractThis study examines the personal and situational characteristics associated with health status change in a sample of 572 managers. Organizational, social and demographic characteristics, environmental perceptions, coping resources and constraints, self‐focused beliefs, characteristics of recent stressful events, appraisals of the event and coping strategies all make an independent contribution to symptom increases. When relatively stable background characteristics are held constant, the greatest associations with symptom increases are for trait anxiety, comforting physically coping, the nature of the most recent stressful event, environmental uncontrollability and organizational instability through mergers and acquisition