Background: The Cochrane Collaboration prides itself in producing research that is relevant to the stakeholders of health care. Recent years have seen the growing efforts of the Cochrane Collaboration in promoting the utilization of the Cochrane Library in the developing countries where such relevant research may be most useful.

Objective: To assess the value of Cochrane reviews as perceived by surgeons in a developing country in terms of its perceived relevance to local clinical practice.

Methodology: The attending consultant staff members of the urologic service of a tertiary government hospital from a developing country were requested to evaluate the usefulness and relevance of completed reviews from the Prostatic Diseases and Urologic Cancers Group. The assessments were based on the burden of the illness or problem tackled by the review, the availability or accessibility of the intervention studied, the relevance of the outcomes used in the study to the typical patients seen in general surgical practice, and the overall applicability of the recommendations to the local setting.

Results: Six urologists (85.7%) participated in the survey, evaluating all 21 completed reviews of the Prostatic Diseases and Urologic Cancers Groups printed in abstract form from the Cochrane Library's issue 4 for 2004. All six topics covered by the reviews concerned with problems or diseases perceived to be prevalent or of significant burden in the health care of the country. Of the 21 interventions studied, only 17 (80.9%) were readily available in the country. All reviews had outcomes that were considered relevant to the patients, although not all outcomes were adjudged insignificant. Recommendations presented by most of the reviews were considered appropriate although not always economically feasible in the local setting by the urologists surveyed.

Conclusions: Reviews published by the Prostatic Disease and Urologic Cancers Group were considered relevant by urologists in a developing country.