TEMPPO is an observational, cross-sectional and multicentre study, initiated in the French metropolitan territory in 2009. Set up from a random sample of 135 psychiatrists, it has observed the procedures for therapeutic management of a population (n=619) of their outpatients (respectively 197 and 422 in public and private practice) with bipolar disorder type I or II disorders (DSM-IV). The patients who were followed were mostly very sick. Every patient received a pharmacological treatment. The prescription included at least one mood stabilizer or an antipsychotic (71 % atypical) in 78 % and 56 % of cases respectively. Treatment regimen changes were frequent (61 % of patients had at least one change in treatment during the last 12 months). A single molecule by therapeutic class was generally prescribed. The presence of an antipsychotic in combination therapy was often associated with the severity or difficulty of care of the patient (mixed states, severity of the global functioning impairment, manic states, high number of hospitalizations and history of suicide attempt). The combination of two antipsychotics is found only in the difficult situations of manic states. Patients with severe depressive phase are those who benefit from the combination mood stabilizer+antipsychotic+antidepressant (16 % of the sample). In this study, the prescription of antidepressants significantly differs from recommendations for good prescribing practices. Indeed antidepressants were commonly prescribed in mixed-phase (63 %), particularly as a monotherapy in 5 % of cases. It was also found in patients in euthymic phase (48 %), manic phase (12 %) and hypomanic phase (29 %). The prescription of atypical antipsychotics (monotherapy or combination) is now fully established in the management of all phases of the disease. The importance of non-pharmacological treatment is acknowledged by psychiatrists and proposed whether a psychotherapeutic support, information about the disease and/or lifestyle changes. The data collected in this study allowed to demonstrate that the participant psychiatrists have a pharmacological management of patients with bipolar disorder mostly in line with national and international guidelines.