Objective  To explore the causal complexity between individual digital literacy and innovative behaviors by focusing on medical students, and to provide scientific references for empowering their innovative behaviors.

Methods  A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect relevant data from students currently enrolled in a medical school in Anhui Province. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was performed to examine the different combination paths for empowering innovative behaviors in medical students.

Results  A total of 922 valid questionnaires were collected. Based on six conditional variables of digital literacy, namely information and data literacy, communication and collaboration literacy, digital content creation literacy, security literacy, problem solving literacy, and career-related literacy, there were five configurations for high-level innovation behaviors of medical students, with the overall consistency being 0.816 and the overall coverage being 0.664. On the other hand, there were three configurations for their low-level innovation behaviors, with the overall consistency being 0.901 and the total coverage being 0.585.

Conclusion  There is a causal complexity between medical students' digital literacy and their innovative behaviors. Different dimensions of digital literacy act synergistically to produce multiple paths to empower medical students' innovative behaviors. Among them, a high level of competence in digital content creation is the core condition that empowers innovative behaviors in medical students, while a low level of problem-solving competence is the key barrier to their innovative behaviors.